Meat Your Meat Substitutes: Granose Meat Free Lincolnshire Sausages

Granose Meat Free Lincolnshire Sausage

Like every vegetarian I know, I am very familiar with ready made vegetarian sausages - Cauldron are probably my favourite - but I have never made my own. The Granose Meat Free Lincolnshire Sausage is something that is a bit of both. For my Meat Your Meat Substitutes review of Granose's Meat Free Lincolnshire Sausages I got down to business with a couple of recipes. The first was using them in the way that Granose intended, that is for sausages, and the second was getting creative with a recipe that was originally intended for pork. But how did it all work out...

'Meatiness':
This is essentially a sausage mixture. Each box comes with two sachets of mix, each of which contains enough portions for two people. I found that eating it did not give me a heavy feeling like eating meat meaning that though I found it satisfying, it wasn't that filling. Rolling it into sausages I found it difficult to make proper banger shapes, I could only manage a chipolata style.

Rolled, uncooked Granose Meat Free Lincolnshire Sausages

Texture:
Once you add water, the texture is a like mince and is a bit sticky. When you cook it up, as a sausage it won't quite brown as a meat would, and can look a bit dry in the pan, so it might be worth adding some oil or margarine to the pan. Biting into it the mixture, which is made mostly of wheat rusk and soy, it is a bit mushy rather than firm.

Taste:
The taste is very subtle and  clearly designed to be embellished while you're cooking.  But this is a good thing. When I used it for the sausages it was the perfect compliment to a good old fashioned fry up. But when I used it in the spring rolls it soaked up all of the flavours like a treat.

Five Spice Vegan Spring Rolls with Kung Fu Collard Greens

Versatility:
I used the mix first as a straight sausage, following the helpful instructions on the back of the box. I was also able to use the mix in a very tasty, if I don't say so myself, recipe for Vegan Chinese Five Spice Spring Rolls.