The great British Banger
Posted: Sun May 04, 2025 9:06 am
I got a craving for bangers recently, the real ones I knew growing up in Blackburn, uniform tubes of mystery meat, served with Onion gravy, mash and mushy peas. Baked beans, HP sauce and white sliced bread. And a cuppa.
The great British banger is a wonder of austerity and a curious thing in its own right, developed in the first world war in accordance with rationing laws, they have a high salt content, water, a lot of fat and a high content of bread as a filler to compensate for the lack of meat.
In the pan they tend to sizzle and whistle and pop, hence the term „Banger“
The banger survived as a low quality sausage past the second world war where it was supplemented with the national loaf and the woolton pie.
British cuisine at its finest.
Anyway, here in Germany the banger is non existent, can’t get any except more or less frozen things from dubious sources.
So I decided to make my own.
First step was to drool over pictures on the google.
Then I orders a „how to“ book on the kindle and got to know my banger.
Two weeks ago I decided to go for it and ordered a sausage stuffer from Amazon for 28 Euros.
Was not expecting much for that price but when it came I was quite surprised, it has a good quality stainless steel tube body and solid stainless steel mechanics, it is easy to dismantle and clean and has a wide selection of spigots.
Really happy with it.
Time to get sausaging.
Went to the local butcher and asked for skins, 600 g pork belly and 400 g pork shoulder and run it through the fine disk on the meat-wolf.
He looked at me curiously and asked what I wanted to do, the skins meant that I wanted to make sausage but the mix is not what he is used to having.
"Make sausage“
His eyes rolled in his skull until they clicked against the stops. Waving his hand over an army of sausages he asked if I thought that he did not have enough.
I told him that I wanted to make English sausages, at that point he gave up and just did as asked but you could tell he was having reservations about his prime meat going into English sausages.
At home half of my haul went into the freezer and the rest I mixed the meaty blob with thyme, pepper, salt, mace, nutmeg and sage, shaved ice and breadcrumbs, then I let it sit for a few hours and nipped of to the pub for a beer.
Later I set up the machine and tried to fit the skins onto the spigot. Its a lot like trying to stuff your wiener into a used condom without the elasticity of latex.
There is a bit of a learning curve…
But finally I got there, tied the end of the intestine off with a knot and filled the machine and cranked the handle.
Now I know that you have to get the air out first because on the first crank the air inside blew the skin up like a kids party balloon which then flew off the spigot with a fart.
I found out that the best way to fill is to crank with your right hand and massage the sausage with your left hand at the same time while standing behind the machine.
And now that I know that I am never going to look at a butcher in the same way again, the kinky bugger.
From a half kilo I got four large bangers and after a night in the fridge I fried on up for breakfast this morning.
The taste was good but I recognize that I need to learn a bit more about this topic.
For my bangers I need to use more salt and spices and thicker skins, maybe even lose the pork shoulder and just use pork belly.
But the first steps to the German banger have been taken and I am looking forward to the next ones.
The great British banger is a wonder of austerity and a curious thing in its own right, developed in the first world war in accordance with rationing laws, they have a high salt content, water, a lot of fat and a high content of bread as a filler to compensate for the lack of meat.
In the pan they tend to sizzle and whistle and pop, hence the term „Banger“
The banger survived as a low quality sausage past the second world war where it was supplemented with the national loaf and the woolton pie.
British cuisine at its finest.
Anyway, here in Germany the banger is non existent, can’t get any except more or less frozen things from dubious sources.
So I decided to make my own.
First step was to drool over pictures on the google.
Then I orders a „how to“ book on the kindle and got to know my banger.
Two weeks ago I decided to go for it and ordered a sausage stuffer from Amazon for 28 Euros.
Was not expecting much for that price but when it came I was quite surprised, it has a good quality stainless steel tube body and solid stainless steel mechanics, it is easy to dismantle and clean and has a wide selection of spigots.
Really happy with it.
Time to get sausaging.
Went to the local butcher and asked for skins, 600 g pork belly and 400 g pork shoulder and run it through the fine disk on the meat-wolf.
He looked at me curiously and asked what I wanted to do, the skins meant that I wanted to make sausage but the mix is not what he is used to having.
"Make sausage“
His eyes rolled in his skull until they clicked against the stops. Waving his hand over an army of sausages he asked if I thought that he did not have enough.
I told him that I wanted to make English sausages, at that point he gave up and just did as asked but you could tell he was having reservations about his prime meat going into English sausages.
At home half of my haul went into the freezer and the rest I mixed the meaty blob with thyme, pepper, salt, mace, nutmeg and sage, shaved ice and breadcrumbs, then I let it sit for a few hours and nipped of to the pub for a beer.
Later I set up the machine and tried to fit the skins onto the spigot. Its a lot like trying to stuff your wiener into a used condom without the elasticity of latex.
There is a bit of a learning curve…
But finally I got there, tied the end of the intestine off with a knot and filled the machine and cranked the handle.
Now I know that you have to get the air out first because on the first crank the air inside blew the skin up like a kids party balloon which then flew off the spigot with a fart.
I found out that the best way to fill is to crank with your right hand and massage the sausage with your left hand at the same time while standing behind the machine.
And now that I know that I am never going to look at a butcher in the same way again, the kinky bugger.
From a half kilo I got four large bangers and after a night in the fridge I fried on up for breakfast this morning.
The taste was good but I recognize that I need to learn a bit more about this topic.
For my bangers I need to use more salt and spices and thicker skins, maybe even lose the pork shoulder and just use pork belly.
But the first steps to the German banger have been taken and I am looking forward to the next ones.
- IMG_0936.jpg (101.34 KiB) Viewed 2423 times
- IMG_0935.jpg (63.29 KiB) Viewed 2423 times
- IMG_0934.jpg (81.48 KiB) Viewed 2423 times
- IMG_0932.jpg (76.44 KiB) Viewed 2423 times
- IMG_0928.jpg (78.25 KiB) Viewed 2423 times
(hagage)
