Taste testing Deeping St Nicholas farm shop's low fat sausage

As a Lincolnshire lass I have very strong opinions on sausages so when the opportunity came to do a taste test I leapt at the chance (probably knocking a few of my colleagues out of the way in my hurry to do it).

You can keep your Cumberlands, Newmarkets and those horrid pink things that claim to be a sausage. For me there is only one sausage – Lincolnshire is king, writes VICTORIA FEAR.

And when Grasmere Farms contacted us about their less than 3% Lincolnshire Sausage I was intrigued to learn more so I head down to the Vine House Farm Shop in Deeping St Nicholas to try one.

Could a low fat sausage really cut the mustard? Could it compare to the full bodied version while helping me to trim down a little bit? And I have to say, for me, it did.

In fact in the blind taste test, it was that good that I was fooled into thinking that it was Grasmere’s original Lincolnshire Sausage.

It was so packed full of flavour with a real punch of herbs and spices that I couldn’t believe that something this tasty would in fact be low fat. Nothing that tasty is ever low fat!

And it has been a labour of love for Grasmere Farm MD and owner, Stuart Stables, who has spent years perfecting the recipe.

Sales and marketing manager James Barnes said: “This is something that Stuart has wanted to do for many years. While there are reduced fat sausages on the market they tend to be of poor quality and he didn’t want to do it.

“He wanted to produce a low fat sausage which is under 3% fat while maintaining the quality of his sausage.”

Thanks to butcher James Wand and the team at Vine House Farm, we were able to conduct a blind taste test to challenge people to see if they could pick out the low fat sausage.

After trying both sausages Brian Davies, of Cambridge, guessed incorrectly, like myself.

He said: “They are both good but I like the low fat one a lot.”

Spalding man John Reader also opted for the low fat version. He said: “I chose the low fat version as it it was very nice.”

The tastebuds of Simon Ragsdell were not fooled.

Mr Ragsdell, of Deeping St Nicholas, described the original version as ‘absolutely gorgeous’.

He said: “It is still very nice but definitely the flavour came out of the original one more.

“I would buy the low fat sausage and would recommend it as it is wonderful.”

Mary Moon was also able to correctly guess which was the low fat sausage.

Mary, who lives in Deeping St James, said: “The low fat sausage was nice but the Lincolnshire Sausage tasted nicer. You wouldn’t be able to tell the difference but I had tasted both together.”

The quality of both sausages were so high that Benji Rons, of Deeping St Nicholas, was unable to guess which was which.

He said: “They tasted the same and I would definitely recommend them. They were both tasty.”

Deeping St Nicholas man Peter Neal was able to pinpoint which was the low fat option.

He said: “Flavour wise they are the same as it is the same recipe.

“The texture is slightly different but for a low fat sausage it is really good. It is close as you are ever going to get.”

Lincolnshire Free Press photographer Chris Lowndes was also impressed with the low fat sausage.

He said: “It was very tasty. I wouldn’t have known it was low fat if I had just been served that.”

• You can still buy Tuesday's Lincolnshire Free Press, where you can cut out a coupon for a third off a kilo of the low fat sausages.