Best bangers for the cash? Photographs: Christopher Thomond for the Guardian  Sausages are, supposedly, one of British food's great success stories. In the early 00s, post-BSE, the general public was beginning to question industrial food production like never before, gutsy modern British cooking was in the vanguard, and the supermarkets responded by introducing new ranges of premium, butcher's-style sausages. Made with proper cuts of meat, these were a world away from the pasty, pink plastic tubes of junk which had previously masqueraded as sausages. But, a decade on, who has maintained that quality? And do any of those posh supermarket brands really bear comparison with the sausages that you might buy from a good, independent butcher?  97% pork! From outdoor-bred pigs! Made to gourmet sausage-maker Martin Heap's recipe! These bangers have a big swagger. One which is, pardon the pun, hogwash (nearing 100% meat isn't necessarily a positive; outdoor-bred actually means the pigs are moved indoors after weaning). In reality, these sausages have a decent aroma and the sage and pepper seasoning is well balanced, but the porky flavour of the finely ground, rather woolly meat is short-lived and it lacks that lip-smacking, fatty luxuriousness that great sausages deliver. A serviceable if unexciting sausage.5/10  Remarkably, these bland bangers – less sausages, more non-committal shrugs stuffed into overly chewy natural casings – won a Great Taste award in 2013 (just the one star, but still). In what will become a theme in this taste test, the Aldi sausages ejaculate juices at the first cut, but don't be deceived. It is not glorious fat, but a kind of thin, fatty water. Adding water (it is the third listed ingredient) presumably gives the meat (90% pork) its brief, deceptive moistness which disappears almost immediately, after which any flavour flatlines.2/10  I would say a sausage that you cannot fry is not a sausage. But, for the record, the cooking instructions do advise you to grill or bake these, which may help explain why their tough, stringy cases took on comparatively little colour in the pan. Despite its impressive 97% pork stats, the rough-cut meat had a curious, disintegrating quality to it. Add in a couple of bits of gristle; the speed with which its porky flavour fades; occasional harsh bursts of dried-herb flavour, and you have a rather clapped-out banger.3/10  This is more like it. Only 87% meat but, crucially, that meat is pork shoulder and belly, cuts that contain a suitable fat-to-lean ratio; meat content over 90% means nothing if it comes from the wrong parts of the pig. Consequently, silky with fat, these sausages have by far the best mouthfeel, while the coarsely ground meat (unusually, sired from a line of "pedigree Hampshire boars"), has a clear, credible flavour and a robust, satisfying meatiness. One caveat: some people won't like the hot, borderline Cumberland spicing, but, among the supermarket own-brands, this is the closest you will get to a proper sausage.7/10  "Improved recipe," hollers the packaging. How bad must they have tasted before? The warning signs come in the pan as one sausage spits out a hissing jet of water that immediately boils off. Perhaps the instruction not to prick them before frying was less cooking advice, more hazard warning. There is, bar a certain saltiness, no obvious seasoning and no obvious flavour to the meat. This is a blank stare of a sausage. On first bite, it feels quite dense. As it might, given that, as well as 90% pork, the ingredients list rice flour, chickpea flour and egg white. Why would you do that to a sausage?2/10  Less moist and more obviously meaty (97%) than others in this list, which is no bad thing given how artificially pumped up with water many supermarket sausages appear to be. Good, easily cut natural casings and a sound, coarse texture. It feels like a real sausage, even if the flavour is pleasant rather than profoundly porky. Given how the white pepper asserts itself, you may prefer Sainsbury's milder, sage-spiked sausages if you're having them for breakfast, but, overall, M&S edged it into second place.5.5/10  Like cheap bacon, these leaked white gunk in the pan, which wasn't an appetising start. Much like the Aldi sausages, each mouthful delivered a moment of hot, watery juice before rapidly turning taste-free and somewhat mealy. The sage and pepper flavourings fade in and out – distant hellos one minute, aggressively in-yer-face the next – while the smooth, overprocessed meat (just 85%) tastes tired and squishy. A great advert for vegetarianism.2/10
Can supermarket premium ranges compete with a proper butcher's sausage, is a higher meat content always better, and what does 'outdoor bred' actually mean? Tony Naylor gets stuck into sausages