Oi Oi Saveloy!

TLDR version: Saveloys. In our store. Now. Get 'em down ya! Oi oi!

The saveloy, a delicious, yet divisive, sausage mainly to be found in the English Midlands, the North-East, and London/Essex, but honourable mentions also go out to Australia, New Zealand, and Maine (where it's referred to as a Red Snapper, but is essentially the same thing). Found almost entirely down the chippy, they come both naked and clothed in delicious batter. Although for the battered version you're going to have to be in the North-East, I'd never even heard of it before writing this. In the Midlands battered sausages are battered sausages and saveloys are saveloys, and never the twain...

The glorious Saveloy, seen here in it's natural habitat amongst some wild battered sausages, a pride of black pudding, a shoal of fish cakes, and the lesser spotted scollop in the bottom left there...

A short while back we released our best-selling chip shop sausage, and on the back of that we were inundated (mainly by Steve in Ningbo) with saveloy requests, turns out the nation was jonesing for a bright red tube of boiled deliciousness. We listened, took our time perfecting it, and now our long red children are ready to be released to fend for themselves!

What is a Saveloy?

Whilst most of us will think of saveloys as a quintessentially British creation, it actually has its roots in both Switzerland (culinary) and France (linguistically). Originally a pig's brain sausage from the Germanic part of Switzerland the saveloy was first seen in Britain some time in the 18th century. The Brits, not being as wild about brain sausages as our German cousins (still are), soon changed the recipe to one containing zero brains, and any mixture of pork, beef, lamb, and chicken that took their fancy. They kept the spices and the red casing the same though.

My dad's from Chelmsford, so I've heard this many times whilst visiting the ancestral lands.

The name itself goes all the way back to the Latin word 'cerebrus', and literally just means 'brains' (again, no brains in modern saveloys. I feel like we can't repeat this often enough). Although the modern pronunciation is more closely linked to the Middle French word 'servelat', also meaning 'brains' (again, no brains). 

Our saveloys are a great mix of pork, beef, and chicken meat, alongside the traditional spicing (heavy on the white pepper and sage, amongst other things)

How do you cook them?

These sausages can be grilled or deep-fried, but mainly they're boilers, and delicate boilers at that. If you cook them too fast you're going to end up splitting them and all that delicious flavour will get washed away. So, how exactly should you go about cooking them?

Fine looking things...

Cooking saveloys is a lot like making love to a beautiful woman. Take them out of the wrapping, but keep the skin on, heat gently, and take your time, but above all don't simply put them in a pot of boiling water and expect everything to be alright. 

Thanks for the intro Swiss Toni...

The best technique is to bring a pan of water to the boil, turn off the heat, and then simply place your saveloys in the hot water and let them stand for around ten minutes. After the time is up, drain and serve (with a stottie and some pease pudding if you're of the Geordie persuasion).

Michelin stars can't be far off now! 

Personally I'd be double frying some home made chips, and currying some baked beans to go with it, but each to their own.

One last thing..

No brains, zero, absolutely none.

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