Displaying items by tag: sausage

We were invited to attend this lovely town's annual event this year as the official bloggers and spent the morning queueing to sample some of the best bangers this part of Suffolk has to offer. The only problem with inviting bloggers and tweeters is that you need a strong fast signal - and as we know Suffolk seems to have some of the worst in the country.

 I was late and rushing for the 2pm train. I had had nothing to eat so after I found a seat and had put it off for as long as possible I bought a sausage roll. It was worse than the last one I had ten years ago. I don't need to describe it because you can see its flabby, rusky, microwaved self, for yourselves.  Abelio Greater Anglia - your crisps have improved, your drinks have improved, now try serving a nice sausage roll?

'We are always discussing new flavours and combinations and wanted to come up with some way of combining chocolate eggs into one of our products,' says Mr Dun a Scottish butcher. 'We did some experimenting with a plain pork sausage meat with the Creme Egg in the middle which we found was very tasty...' Sounds so revolting I'm tempted to try it. 

His name is Ben Hutton. His restaurant is called Ben's. He has just opened in Bury St Edmunds and here is the link to his story. The food is all locally sourced, with pork reared by Ben himself to create his own recipe Ben's Bangers. The bangers come served on pancetta mash with shredded cabbage, buttered carrots and onion gravy. They were very good indeed. You can't beat bangers and mash on a cold winters night. We also tried the Trio of Jacob lamb prime cuts, which were shoulder, a lamb cutlet and liver. I would argue that liver is not a prime cut and is in fact offal, but I like offal and was happy to order it. It was served with boulangere potatoes, rosemary jus, root veg and savoy cabbage. The lamb was sourced from the local Culford flock and was tender, with plenty of it. I would have liked more gravy. Yes, I call it gravy. Puddings we tried included a selection of the local Alder Carr ice creams ...heaven.. and a cheesecake of the day which was stem ginger and honey. Light, not cloying and very well flavoured. A homemade tuile biscuit perched on the top, some lovely citrussy honey sauce drizzled over and unnecessary squeezy chocolate sauce garnish on the plate. It is good to see a new independent restaurant open in a town which is over run with chains.

• Stem ginger and honey cheesecake
• Trio of Jacob prime cuts
• Bens Restaurant
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 Meet Bill Wolff-Evans (far left) son Harry (far right) Harry's cousin Ella (next to Harry) and team member Hannah from Rendlesham based deli-company Wolff-Evans and Sons.They have created a proper hand made scotch egg and sell them to Fortnum and Mason, the original creators of the portable snack in the 1730's. Bill told us his secret to the perfect scotch egg. A free range egg from Havensfield Eggs of Hoxne, with a soft set yolk and no "rattle" of the egg within the Dingley Dell pork sausage meat.  Only lean pork shoulder and belly meat is used in the pork casing. Lucky for us "locals" they are also available in 40  East of Englnd Co-op stores in Essex, Norfolk and Suffolk. Look out for the Christmas special Cranberry and Turkey Scotch Egg. 

Steve sells his own farm-reared pork at local farmers markets and he was at the new Elmswell market last Sunday. He doesn't have a website and only uses the internet to check the tide tables when he wants to go fishing, so Google Clavering Pigs if you want to find out where to find him.

Crepes, frites et saucissons, et j'avais mange toutes!

What a lovely pair of villages! Had to take my son to football so wander about looking for a home-made food shop for a late breakfast snack. Found the Co Op, but then the blinds go up on the local deli so I buy two very large sausage rolls at £1.20 each.  Nice pastry and local sausage meat although my son thinks the ones he makes are better. There are home-made quiches in the freezer and a couple of nice looking cakes, but not sure why a shelf full of toilet rolls haven't been hidden round the corner...?!