You Silly Sausage. (Asda Extra Special Sausages)

Member Name: Emmald

Product:	Asda Extra Special Sausages
Date:	23/10/09 (82 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: A good meaty sausage.

Disadvantages: None.

Call me old fashioned but I love the traditional British banger, if I have my way it is served with creamed potato, fried onion, peas, carrots and a good thick onion gravy and if the Other Half has his way they are served with a good helping of home made chips and some peas.
But it is getting harder and harder to find a `good` sausage, some of the butchers sell their own versions that are meaty and tasty but you need a second mortgage to be able to buy a pound.

Sausages have to be good quality if they are going to be worth eating, the value sausages are packed with rubbish and cereal, they taste of nothing and I dread the thought of what else goes into them. I would far rather hand over a decent amount of money and know that I am at least going to enjoy what I am eating.

The Asda extra special range includes our old favourites the Cumberland sausage, pork, honey and mustard sausage, pork and sweet chilli sausages, pork and leek, pork roasted tomato and garlic, vintage cheddar and caramelised onion chutney, beef pepper and coriander, Aberdeen Angus and Lincolnshire and I may even have missed a couple of varieties out !
A 400g pack of the Asda special sausages contains six large sausages and costs around £2.28.
At the moment all of the range are on special offer, buy three packs for £5.

We like the Asda pork and leek sausages, they have all the taste of the traditional sausage but there is that little twist that the leek adds. I think it is worth telling you that the Asda pork and leek sausages are made using Scottish pork and fresh leeks.
Asda have used a mixture of two cuts of pork for this recipe, they have used belly pork ( which is a fairly fatty cut ) and shoulder of pork which is far leaner. To the meat they have added chopped chives, herbs, spices, preservatives and of course rusk and crumbs that add bulk to the sausage.
The sausages are encased in a natural pork skin.

100g of the product contains 215 calories and they have a high fat content. They contain sulphites ( preservatives ), wheat, gluten and milk. The Asda sausages can be frozen.

Although it is far better for you to grill the sausages I much prefer to shallow fry mine and irrespective of the fact that you do not need to prick the skins before you cook them I find that old habits die hard. I use a drop of olive oil in my frying pan and I cook the sausages for about 15 minutes turning them around so that the skins brown evenly.
The Asda pork and leek sausages have a coarse texture and you can see the small flecks of sautéed leek laying under the skin. The skins are thick but they are not tough, once you take your knife to the sausages they cut easily.
When you cook them the smell is good and tasty, you can taste the leek when you eat them but you cannot smell it when you cook them.
Like most sausages the Asda pork and leek do lose some fat, so you end up with a little more fat in the frying pan than when you first started cooking. I like to make sure that the sausages are well cooked and I usually partially slice one so that I am certain that they are cooked through.
Once the sausages are ready then I drain away the excess fat and lay them on a couple of sheets of kitchen roll to `dry off` completely.

The Asda pork and leek sausages are meaty, the meat inside of the sausage is closely packed and remains quite solid when it is cooked. The pork is well seasoned and the skins brown well. I like the fact they contain leek but that taste is not overpowering, first and foremost the flavour is meaty.
The sausages are still a good size once they are cooked and two sausages are ample for me, the Other Half will enjoy three.

The Asda pork and leek sausages provide us with a good meal that is well in budget. I love the sausages fried then placed into a roll with a heap of caramelised fried onions on the top, they are delicious.
The Asda Extra sausages are well worth paying that few pence more for.

Summary: Call me old fashioned but I love British bangers.