Richmond Thick Irish Recipe Sausages

...me to say it, but Richmond Sausages were the defining factor in this. Looking for a meaty accompaniment to my dinner one day I picked up a pack of Richmond Thick Irish Recipe Sausages for the what seemed a reasonable price of £2.19 for 8.

Concealed in their rather plain green and white packaging, you can see for yourself the sausages, and from the outside they do look like your standard banger. However, this is as far as the likeness ...
...the chef simply saying "they're Richmond Sausages" as though nothing else need be said due to their sheer excellence, and the guy after tasting them having a change of mind over some industrial work. Where's the problem with that you might think? Well the two occasions during the advert where we see the sausages being cut open, the very second the inside of the sausages is about to be exposed, the camera cuts away to something else so that ... more

When it comes to meat products I am a very fussy person. Only the best will do for me. But I have only been so concerned with what I eat in the last year or so, and it pains me to say it, but Richmond Sausages were the defining factor in this. Looking for a meaty accompaniment to my dinner one day I picked up a pack of Richmond Thick Irish Recipe Sausages for the what seemed a reasonable price of £2.19 for 8.

Concealed in their rather plain green and white packaging, you can see for yourself the sausages, and from the outside they do look like your standard banger. However, this is as far as the likeness goes. Once I had cooked them, they had shrunk to about half the original size of what they were (not a good start). Again, after being cooked for around 25 minutes, the outside looked perfectly normal; a crisp dark brown colour as I expected. However, when I prized the sausage open with my knife and fork, I was slightly shocked and disheartened to see that the centre was a shade of pink (not through undercooking, but through what was contained in the sausage). I was assured by one of my more knowledgable friends that it was still edible, and once it had cooled down I reluctantly took my first bite. The taste did resemble that of a sausage, but it was clear that the cut of pork used was one of the cheapest available. Consuming the sausage was tantamount to chewing a strip of fat (not in its fattiness, more its sheer chewiness). Overall the taste was bland and to make it more enjoyable I had to mix in some mashed potato for flavour.

The main (and most deplorable) reason as to their (lack of) taste is their derisory pork content. At a pathetically poor 42% pork, it's no wonder they're nothing special. To compensate for this, the salt content per hundred grams (about 2 sausages) is a shockingly high 2.2g, which is over a third of an adult's recommended daily allowance.

One feature that does give them some credibility is that they are suitable for home freezing, though there aren't a lot of sausages that aren't to be fair. What's more, I think that their TV advert is misleading. It shows some guy in a cafe tucking into his lunch, the chef simply saying "they're Richmond Sausages" as though nothing else need be said due to their sheer excellence, and the guy after tasting them having a change of mind over some industrial work. Where's the problem with that you might think? Well the two occasions during the advert where we see the sausages being cut open, the very second the inside of the sausages is about to be exposed, the camera cuts away to something else so that we cannot see for ourselves what is in them. Perhaps showing the unappetising pink tint to their "meat", along with the excessive amounts of rusk, water and connective tissue that is inside their "high quality" sausages might make people think twice. This seems harsh, but high quality food (meat especially) is something I feel passionate about, and in my opinion, Richmond sausages don't live up to their hype.

So overall, I would strongly recommend purchasing a different brand of sausages. There are plenty of them around that offer a higher pork content. Richmond sausages are edible I hasten to add, and do somewhat resemble the taste of a sausage, but if you've had one of the bigger, better brands, these won't even be in comparison.  

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