AFT Introducing: Oakley Grange Farm

Photos: © Oakley Grange Farm

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Oakley Grange Farm, in the heart of Leicestershire, is over 200 years old, and has been run by the Mee family for the past two generations. Richard and Inger took over the farm in 2001 and farm organically, raising beef cattle, pigs, sheep and laying hens alongside wheat, fruit and salad vegetables.

Their café is part of a busy working farm and boasts views over the countryside as well as into rural life. Tractors and animals alike can be
seen from the café windows and visitors can also benefit from their local
and farming expertise.

As much food as possible is either grown or reared on Oakley Grange Farm, and if not, they try to source from local suppliers. Everything is freshly prepared and served by Inger and the team in a relaxed and welcoming environment.

In the café, breakfast, afternoon tea, coffee and cake, is served as well as a wide range of hot lunches and sandwiches. The breakfast includes their own sausages, bacon and eggs along with roast tomatoes, mushrooms and toast made from the farm's home baked bread.

Organic beef, pork, lamb, eggs produced on the farm can be bought in their shop plus other carefully sourced  groceries including biscuits, preserves, pickles and chocolates.

To find out more about Oakley Grange Farm visit their page on 
The Artisan Food Trail here

Bacon lovers unite

Photo: © childsdesign

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How wonderful would it be if the internet had the power to transmit aromas? If it did, we’d be uploading the olfactory delight of sizzling bacon to accompany the picture.

This week is Bacon Connoisseurs Week, but why only be a connoisseur for just one week of the year? Devoted lovers of bacon will tell you that it is something they could not live without. Bacon at its best brings back memories whether it’s the holiday breakfast cooked in a dented frying pan, atop a Calor gas stove on a windy British beach or simply lazy Sunday mornings. Bacon is a satisfier of appetite, a comfort, a restorative – some would say, a hangover cure.

Whatever your relationship with bacon, choose the best and buy British at the very least.
Bacon on The Artisan Food Trail is a real step up in terms of quality, craft, animal welfare and above all, flavour. This special flavour is what you get from rare breed pigs that have led a happy, natural life. A pig’s life outdoors which allows it to root around and run about in the fresh air, added to its particular breed, produces full flavoured meat with the all important fat. Remember fat equals flavour.

The rare breeds on the food trail include British Saddleback, Tamworth, Iron Age, Gloucester Old Spot, Large Black and English Lop, Middle White, and Oxford Sandy & Black. Not all of these breeds go into making bacon but the pork is just as wonderful, so well worth a try.

The following producers all rear pigs for pork, some produce bacon and other pork charcuterie products as well as pies and sausages.

Samphire in Norfolk has bacon in either smoked or unsmoked, available in various cuts. Pork, sausages and pork pies too.

Paganum Produce in the Yorkshire Dales create their own dry-cured streaky or back bacon as well as pork charcuterie including their famous Yorkshire Chorizo and of course the best home-reared pork.

Pilkington Farms in Hertfordshire cross-breed rare breeds to produce pork which has just the right amount of fat and flavour that their customers prefer.

Orchard View Farm in Buckinghamshire produces smoked streaky or back bacon as well as their award winning pork along with pies, sausages and ham.

British Sausage Week: 5th – 11th November 2012

British Sausage Week is back and is being celebrated with stand-up star and comic genius, Al Murray’s ‘The Pub Landlord’. He has taken on the coveted crown of 'King of the Sizzle' when he tours the country during the week, rallying troops to stand up for British bangers.

Types of sausage
There are many regional sausages throughout the British Isles that use traditional recipes that go back many generations.
There's the long coiled Cumberland sausage which is meaty with a coarse, chunky texture and black pepper giving a spicy bite; The Lincolnshire sausage, an old fashioned favourite scented with sage; West Country ones with pork and apple and maybe a touch of cider and Oxford sausages that contain veal, as well as pork. These are just a few of the many varieties made and the list continues to grow as producers experiment with different flavour combinations.

With a national competition that will reveal the land’s finest bangers, a host of delicious new recipes to try out and plenty of opportunities to get involved, it will be impossible not to stand up and be counted.

Cooking
We can't resist a nicely cooked sausage. They should be cooked carefully over a medium heat so they cook slowly allowing the outside to gently caramelise so it becomes slightly sticky and the inside should be juicy.
Don't have the heat too high or the sausage will burst and definitely do not prick them, this will make all the tasty juices escape.

Where to find the best sausages
And of course we have the best of British sausages right here on
The Artisan Food Trail.
All the producers on our food trail that make the finest sausages using
meat from animals that have a led a healthy and happy life, so when you buy sausages make sure you choose British, local and bangers made with passion.

More often than not the animals are rare breeds too which means that these sausages have an unsurpassable flavour and texture. The sausage mix is skilfully blended with a variety of herbs and spices from the mild to the spicy to suit everyone’s preferences.

So whether you are making a hearty casserole, a Toad-in-the-Hole or just good old Bangers & Mash make sure you choose the best.

Samphire's Simple Sausages  Photos: © childsdesign

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Samphire
Samphire is an award winning smallholding in Norfolk rearing rare breed pigs and sheep. Ethical farming is at the heart of Samphire and they have been recognised by the RSPCA for their commitment to animal welfare.

 It’s not just their regulars who love their rare breed meat, Gary Rhodes said their sausages were the best he'd ever tasted

For more information visit Samphire on The Artisan Food Trail here

Capsicana Chilli Sausages  Photos: © Capsicana taken by childsdesign

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Capsicana Chilli Co
Capsicana has teamed up with a whole host of independent butchers across the the UK to bring you an absolutely delicious chilli sausage! They use a variety of authentic Mexican chillies to make their special chilli & spice blend and their selected butchers combine this with their fabulous sausage-making expertise and hey presto...  the best chilli sausages in the UK!!
Perfect for the BBQ, spicing up favourites like bangers & mash or making a Mexican style sausages and bean casserole.

Details of butchers using Capsicana’s chilli sausage blend 
available here 
For more information visit Capsicana Chilli Co 
on The Artisan Food Trail here

Paganum Produce

Yorkshire producer, Paganum’s selection of Premium Pork Sausages made in their traditional butchery to age old family recipes.


For more information visit Paganum Produce 
on The Artisan Food Trail here

Toad in the Hole

Photo: © childsdesign

Crispy puffed up Yorkshire Pudding encasing a few good plump, meaty sausages makes a great family meal.
The trick to getting the pudding batter to billow up is to make sure you heat the fat in the tray, in which it is to be cooked. The fat should be smoking when you pour in the batter, this way it starts to cook immediately enabling a good rise.
Part-cooking the sausages before adding them to the batter ensures that they don't look anaemic – you want shiny brown burnished 'toads' to make it look appetising.
Served with a rich gravy this is sure to be a winner.

View recipe

The Artisan Food Trail's Best Bangers for British Sausage Week

British Sausage Week give us a chance to showcase our producers who make some great British sausages.
These aren’t the cheap, sad insipid offerings you might find in the supermarket, but brilliant bangers with bags of taste, great texture made with meat from animals that have led happy and healthy lives.

More often than not the animals are rare breeds too which means that these sausages have an unsurpassable flavour and texture. The sausage mix is skillfully blended with a variety of herbs and spices from the mild to the spicy to suit everyone’s preferences.

So whether you are making a hearty casserole, a Toad-in-the-Hole or just good old Bangers & Mash make sure you choose the best.

Photos: © childsdesign

Samphire
Samphire is an award winning smallholding in Norfolk rearing rare breed pigs and sheep. Ethical farming is at the heart of Samphire and they have been recognised by the RSPCA for their commitment to animal welfare.

 It’s not just their regulars who love their rare breed meat, Gary Rhodes said their sausages were the best he'd ever tasted

You can buy sausages online from a selection as follows:

The Samphire Sausage
An excellent partner to mashed potatoes and onion gravy, this sausage is a great all rounder with subtle seasonings of traditional spices and herbs. Ginger, mace and nutmeg provide the base to the top notes of sage, onion and coriander.

Sausage Selection – Six of the Best!
Samphire will put together a selection of their most popular sausages, ringing the changes as they create new flavours.
All sausages are made from our rare breed, free range pork and do not contain any colourings or flavour enhancers – they aren't needed!
For more information visit Samphire on The Artisan Food Trail here


Annie’s Market Garden
All ingredients are locally produced and sourced and all products are made at Annie’s.
The fantastic meat they produce (their customers will tell you so) is a direct result of the way they look after their animals. They graze freely in the orchards around the farm amongst the buttercups, wildflowers and natural pastures. 
Annie’s offer a range of exceptional Rare Breed meat products – Highland beef and also pork and lamb.

Annie’s Market Garden Pork Sausages
Traditional British breeds of pork (Berkshire & Gloucester Old Spot) are reared naturally and slowly, as nature intended. Annie’s are hoping to continue breeding the Berkshire pigs to help keep the bloodlines going. Annie’s firmly believe that for a great taste, time is needed – the rewards, great tasting native & rare breed pork perfect for making the best sausages.

For more information visit Annie’s Market Garden 
on The Artisan Food Trail here

Photos: © Capsicana taken by childsdesign

Capsicana Chilli Co
Capsicana has teamed up with a whole host of independent butchers across the the UK to bring you an absolutely delicious chilli sausage! They use a variety of authentic Mexican chillies to make their special chilli & spice blend and their selected butchers combine this with their fabulous sausage-making expertise and hey presto...  the best chilli sausages in the UK!!
Perfect for the BBQ, spicing up favourites like bangers & mash or making a Mexican style sausages and bean casserole.

Details of butchers using Capsicana’s chilli sausage blend 
available here 
For more information visit Capsicana Chilli Co 
on The Artisan Food Trail here



Paganum Produce
Yorkshire producer, Paganum’s selection of Premium Pork Sausages made in their traditional butchery to age old family recipes.

Classic Pork Sausage
Handmade special recipe Classic Pork Sausage in real skins and hand linked in the traditional way.

Gluten Free Sausage
Handmade special recipe Gluten Free Pork Sausage. A very high meat content gluten free sausage suitable for Coeliacs.

Pork & Honey Sausages
Handmade special recipe Pork & Honey Sausage in real skins and hand linked in the traditional way. A mild sausage, kids love 'em!

Cumberland Sausage
Handmade Cumberland Recipe Sausage in real skins. Great cooked in the oven in the traditional ring.


Chipolata Pork Sausage
A thin, short pork breakfast sausage, traditional at Christmas.

Gourmet Venison, Pork, Cranberry & Apple Sausage
Venison, Pork, Cranberry & Apple Sausage, real skins & hand linked in the traditional way.

Elite Sausage Box
Contains: Pork Leek & Chive, Ploughman’s Sausage, Prime Yorkshire Champion Pork Sausage thick, Prime Yorkshire Champion Pork Sausage thin, Pork & Caramelised Onion Sausage 
All pork is free range, outdoor reared in woods in Yorkshire.

Paganum Sausage Selection
Box of Paganum Sausages, real skins and hand linked in the traditional way, includes Classic Thin Link Breakfast Pork Sausage, Thick Pork & Honey Sausages and the Traditional Cumberland ring.

Visit Paganum Produce on The Artisan Food Trail here

Get to know your regional sausage

Photo: © childsdesign

A good sausage should be made with at least 70% high quality meat, usually beef or pork or a mixture of both. The remaining content is seasoning and breadcrumbs.

Across the UK there are many regional varieties of sausages and here are a few of the most easily found.

Cumberland Sausage
This is considered to be the meatiest British sausage. It is a chunky, coarse cut sausage spiced with black pepper and made in a continuous spiral. It is traditionally sold by length rather than weight. Looks very impressive when coiled in a spiral and cooked whole.

Gloucester Sausage
Traditionally made with Gloucester Old Spot (a rare breed) and flavoured with sage. Increasingly available from local specialists.

Lincolnshire Sausage
Old fashioned herby regional sausage traditionally made with pork, bread and sage (although thyme seems to be creeping in).

Lorne
Bit of an oddity, this is Scottish square slicing sausage. It is made with beef and pork, has a smooth texture and is probably destined for either the breakfast table or eaten in a sandwich with white sliced bread and brown sauce.

Manchester Sausage
A pork sausage, flavoured with white pepper, mace, nutmeg, ginger, sage and cloves.

Marylebone Sausage
A traditional London butchers sausage made with mace, ginger and sage.

Oxford Sausage
A regional sausage made with pork, veal and lemon. Herbs are usually sage, savory and marjoram

Pork and Apple (West Country)
Pork with apple and often cider or scrumpy, generally makes a moist sausage. Sage is often used, they are available nationally but very popular in the West Country. Traditionally made with Gloucester Old Spot which where reared in orchards and would have eaten the windfall apples.

Suffolk Sausage
A course chopped sausage with herbs, similar to Lincolnshire

Tomato Sausage
Pork and tomato, typical 10% tomato gives a distinctive red colour, they are popular in the Midlands. Can be combined with basil and sun dried tomatoes for the ‘Mediterranean’ taste

Yorkshire Sausage
White pepper, mace, nutmeg and cayenne are the predominant flavours in the Yorkshire sausage.

Get Your Bangers Out! It's British Sausage Week – 31st October – 6th November 2011

Slade frontman, Noddy Holder has been let out of his box slightly prematurely this year, and instead of shouting out a gravelly "It's Chriiiiiiiiistmaaaaaas!" he's proudly vociferating the brilliance of British bangers as ambassador and King of the Sizzle for LovePork's British Sausage Week.

Running from 31st October – 6th November 2011, this week is dedicated to all things sausage. Sausage, that's a word that has us Brits collapsing into a fit of giggles – nothing like a spot of innuendo to get the festivities going.

On a more serious note, British Sausage Week's aim is to make us all aware of how British pork is the best and encourages us to support our own farmers and producers by buying quality sausages.

There are many regional sausages throughout the British Isles that use traditional recipes that go back many generations.
There's the long coiled Cumberland sausage which is meaty with a coarse, chunky texture and black pepper giving a spicy bite; The Lincolnshire sausage, an old fashioned favourite scented with sage; West Country ones with pork and apple and maybe a touch of cider and Oxford sausages that contain veal, as well as pork. These are just a few of the many varieties made and the list continues to grow as producers experiment with different flavour combinations.

We can't resist a nicely cooked sausage. They should be cooked carefully over a medium heat so they cook slowly allowing the outside to gently caramelise so it becomes slightly sticky and the inside should be juicy. Don't have the heat too high or the sausage will burst and definitely do not prick them, this will make all the tasty juices escape.

The Artisan Food Trail is lucky enough to have a good number of food producers that make the finest sausages using meat from animals that have a led a healthy and happy life, so when you buy sausages make sure you choose British, local and bangers made with passion.

Over the coming week look out for more information about our sausage making friends, recipes, mouth-watering pictures and much more.

'Piggy Sunday' at Samphire a success

'Piggy Sunday' proved to be a popular course as a group of enthusiastic people got stuck into some sausage making on Sunday...
Just click on the pictures to see the full image.



...Plus they also learned about all the cuts of pork with a butchery demonstration including mastering some butcher's knots.

The Real Squeal: Samphire

Samphire is an award winning smallholding in Norfolk rearing rare breed pigs and sheep. Ethical farming is at the heart of Samphire and they have been recognised by the RSPCA for their commitment to animal welfare winning their Good Business Award two years running.

Karen Nethercott became weary of the rat race and quit a successful career in corporate accountancy to start a new life and a smallholding in the country. Before she started she didn’t know anything about farming and learned through courses with the Norfolk Smallholders training group, from watching others and taking notes.
She and her husband Jeff now rear British Saddleback and Gloucester Old Spot pigs and Ryeland sheep, there are also chickens and geese on the farm too and a substantial kitchen garden.

Samphire is run on the belief that animals should be raised as naturally as possible – all Samphire meat has a great life under spacious Norfolk skies with plenty of fresh air and tasty meal times.
Only use rare breeds are used because they are passionate about preserving what is special about British rural culture and heritage. The animals thrive in non-intensive, natural farming environments and produce fabulous tasting meat.

Photos: © childsdesign

The food is really special because Samphire believes it’s better to be obsessed with making something exceptional than obsessing about price and competition.
It’s not just our regulars who love their rare breed meat either, Gary Rhodes said their sausages were the best he'd ever tasted and Giles Coren gave their delicious pork pies 10/10.

Sell their fabulous pork pies, sausages and other goodies at local farmers’ markets and also at a couple of markets in London, it is definitely worth getting along to their stall. If you can’t get to a market you can order online through their website or pick up from the farm.

My Little Porkie
Samphire always have Gloucester Old Spot and Saddleback piglets scurrying around and My Little Porkie gives you the chance to own one of them. There’s no worry about having to look after it as Samphire will do all that for you. You just choose your piglet at the start and then they will send you regular updates and photos showing you what it is getting up to. They can even arrange a visit. All you have to do is decide how you want your pork at the end (Samphire can help with that).

Throughout the year the smallholding is open to visitors for events and courses. The best way of finding out what is coming up is by joining Samphire's mailing list on the website or linking to their twitter or facebook pages.

Visit Samphire on The Artisan Food Trail here

Course/Event, Sunday 25th September 2011: Piggy Sunday – Nose To Tail In A Day

Have you ever wanted to know how to keep pigs on a small scale?
Would you like to learn about pork butchery and make your own sausages?
Then we think you'll be interested in this one day course being run by Samphire.

Samphire is owned and run by Karen and Jeff Nethercott who ditched the corporate life to rear rare breed pigs and sheep on their beautiful Norfolk smallholding because, as they say, "it’s more fun isn’t it?"
Ethical farming is at the very heart of Samphire and they've have been lucky enough to win awards from the RSPCA for their commitment to animal welfare.

It’s not just their regulars who love their rare breed meat, Gary Rhodes said the Samphire sausages were the best he'd ever tasted and Giles Coren (The Times) gave their delicious pork pies 10/10.

Believing in giving their animals a completely free range life, plenty of space to muck about in and proper food with nothing nasty added they have found that rare breeds flourish in this environment and the resulting meat is the best you’ll ever taste.

Piggy Sunday
This Piggy Sunday will start with a tour of the smallholding to see how they keep their pigs on a small scale. You'll be given loads of tips on how to do it yourself and what you’ll need.

You'll then move on to a butchery session where Samphire's butcher, Steve will show you how a carcass is broken down and what options you have with cuts for the kitchen.

After a homemade lunch featuring some of their famous pork pies and sausages you'll spend the afternoon making sausages. It’s dead easy and you’ll soon have a pile of you very own hand crafted sausages to take home.

The day will wrap up with tea and homemade cakes.

When: 9.30am – 4.30pm, Sunday 25 Sept 2011
Where: Tibenham, South Norfolk
Cost: £85 per person includes taking home around 2kg sausages that you make (worth about £20)

To Book
Call 01379 674413 or click here to book online