We were the very proud winners once again of the 2014 Great British Sausage Week competition. This time we were part of the Midlands region and entered our Classic and Mediterranean sausages with the latter taking the crown. We were awarded a national gold medal for the Classic.

One of the comments I heard about the sausage was that even amongst the combination of strong flavours from the sun-dried tomato, mozzarella, basil and garlic, the flavour of the pork was still prominent which means we have a good mix between flavour and pork. There isn’t one thing that makes a good sausage because everyone’s tastes are different. We play around with flavours a lot before we get it right; here is a little guide if you want to try making your own homemade sausages:

Base

Every sausage will have a base mixture including your sausage meat, seasoning and a binding element. Some people use rusk, but there are other options available such as rice flower for a gluten free base mixture. At Perfick Pork, we use a recipe that is a family secret passed down from my father and grandfather.

Texture
The texture of the sausage will be determined by the length of time or number of times the sausage meat is passed through the grinder. Some sausages are smooth such as a hot dog (American style) sausage, and some are coarse. However, the final texture is normally down to the preference of the butcher or chef.

Flavouring
Over the past few years we’ve come up with some weird and wonderful flavour combinations; some have worked, some haven’t. Don’t be afraid of getting it wrong. If you are playing around with different flavours to your sausage, split your batch of sausage meat into smaller batches and use different levels of ingredients so you can start to refine your sausage. If you’re unsure of what flavours to use, think of pork as a savory base and what you would like to eat with it – something sweet with something spicy; maybe a combination of herbs or if you are really adventurous try using another product – honey, Worcester Sauce or even Marmite! The choice is yours.

If you have made your own sausages, send us a picture of them to [email protected] or tweet us your pictures to @perfickpork, #perfick. But if all this sounds to complicated, try our recent award winning Mediterranean, Classic and for one of our most popular sausages, the Chilli & Garlic.