Hinchliffes - Cheddar, Chive & Pork
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By: As promised in our news item, we tried the current Champion of Champions sausage last week. This is a real butchers banger which beat 36 other entrants.
A plump, superbly made sausage. We got 5 plump bangers in a 500g pack for £4.95 a kilo. Each was perfectly formed raw and kept that good appearance once cooked, there was minimal fat, spillage or shrinkage during the cooking. They are made with plenty of rusk -this helps them achieve that good shape.
The taste was good, a moist finely minced sausage. The rounded flavours work brilliantly, none dominate but the cheddar, chives and pork blend and each contribute to the overall taste.
Hinchliffes are not going for a meaty ''''Sunday Dinner'''' sausage which would cost £7 - 10 a kilo, they are making a well priced banger which is perfectly judged for easy eating and the sausage competitions.
This is a good sausage and is worth 8 on our scoring system.
Why only 8 for the Champion of Champions? A glance at the detailed scores will explain why our TASTE rating might seem low. This sausage beat 36 other entrants scoring 281 points. Points were awarded on 8 categories and 55 were awarded for flavour (the highest of the 37 entrants). Overall less than 20% of the marks are given for the area which we as consumers are most interested in. This means that poor tasting but technically good sausages can do very well at this type of competition.
There is nothing wrong with this sausage, it is tasty, well made and reasonably priced - the competition marking system should be amended to give more overall marks to flavour.
Rant over, the sausages can be brought at the well stocked farm shop/tea rooms in the village of Netherton a few miles outside Huddersfield. The butchers is closed on Mondays but they have a well stocked frozen section.