Marmite sausage

940g pork loin
538g pork belly
300g pork fat
25g salt
10g black pepper
54g Marmite
50ml water
Sheep casings

This is my first wholly made-up sausage recipe and it turned out a big success. I know how to make a basic sausage and I've been eating Marmite for years so I was happy mixing the two in order to see what came out.

My favourite way of eating Marmite is thickly spread on fresh bread with plenty of butter. I've tried various Marmite products and recipes before and I've never been that impressed with them. The best cooked Marmite dish I have had to date has been Eggy bread (French toast/Pan Perdu) with Marmite. Mixing Marmite with meat was going to be something new for me.

I guessed what I thought was a conservative amount of Marmite to use for the volume of meat. It's hard stuff to weigh out because of it's intense viscosity. I was pleased that I got it all out of the measuring container by warming it in a water bath and adding some boiling water. The meat acquired a lovely sticky quality once the Marmite was added and it had rested in the fridge for a few hours.

Marmite is a very salty product, about 10g salt per 100g Marmite. I reduced the amount of salt in the basic sausage recipe to account for the salt content of the Marmite so I would maintain the overall salt content of the sausages at just over 1.5%.

Marmite isn't the dominant flavour in these sausages. But the sausages have that powerful Marmite tangy/umami quality about them. And that is the reason I love Marmite. They are very more-ish. The next time I make these I would be happy to increase the amount of Marmite a little.

I used sheep casings for these sausages as I thought a thinner sausage would be better suited for such a strong flavour. It just seems better suited to smaller bites.

I over did the fat a little, which I can see now from looking at the recipe proportions. I was using up some extra fat that I had to hand and the pork loin was too lean on its own. But the extra fat comes out into the pan when the sausages are cooked, making a great Marmite sauce to pour over vegetables.

I'm very happy with these sausages. I'm already thinking ahead to making some Marmite black pudding. The colour is definitely going to suit the flavour.