Our teacher for the day would be Timothy, aka Timothy Sausage. We could not have wanted for a better instructor, being a self proclaimed food snob, the passion and interest was just pouring from Timothy. No half hearted “job” from him. Pre warning us about the ‘adult’ tones of the class, we were excited for what was in store…….
After a safety briefing and a very interesting company history as well as a background on the sausage industry we were let loose with the ingredients and equipment. In pairs, we followed Timothy’s instructions step by step and he was constantly on hand to offer tips and pointers where we could enhance or tweak the recipe.
The fun part of the process was the addition of pure unadulterated imagination. The class room had a store ram packed with spices, herbs, sauces and fresh ingredients to really help us craft a unique banger. We felt like mad scientists throwing things in to bowls and conjuring up flavour matches.
As Paul was up first, he opted for black pudding (local produced by Northumberland Sausage Company too), parsley and a healthy dose of HP brown sauce. After a swift chop, the meat and imagination went back in to the machine to be squeezed out in to the authentic hog skins.
Yes yes, it was all very phallic and there were dirty giggles a plenty… especially with the help of Timothy’s visual guidance. After making his Cumberland sausage roll, Paul twirled his well packed meat (oo-er) in to sausage links and left them to chill while we moved on to my turn. Uh-oh.
This time round Timothy took a back seat and we were left to work through the recipe at our own pace. I took myself off to the Aladdins Cave of imagination and decided to pack my Pork banger with chillies, garlic, wholegrain mustard, mixed herbs and a VERY generous dose of extra hot hot sauce.
I hadn’t realised how much coordination you needed to be doing this alone and I was grateful to have Paul helping out feeding the ingredients in to the machine so I could handle the sausage as it came out in to the skins.
Our only disappointment was that the sausages would be left to ‘hang’ to intensify their flavours… we had been planning on devouring them later that day!! Thankfully we were shown how to strip down each machine and where a large portion of unused filling was left that had not been forced in to the skins. Hurrah – we had something to taste as soon as we got home!
This looks like so much fun! Might have to look into giving it a go!
Chloe x
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