Harrington’s Pork and Fennel

I was at New World in Thorndon this morning and thought I would make shepherd’s pie for dinner. However you do need a little aperitif so I brought a tray of Harrington’s Pork and Fennel sausages. These are made in Miramar on the other side of Wellington. They are a small chunky sausage to view, regular in diameter but shorter in length. They looked good. The package said they were made from fresh NZ pork, white wine, fennel seeds, pepper and few preservatives.

When I buy pork at the supermarket I always check to ensure that it is NZ pork. If you go to the Pork Industries website you can see that NZ imports pork from a wide number of countries. While the largest country of origin is the USA, 23% of the pork comes from Finland. I found this a little odd, pigs running around in the snow and saunas? Or more probably factory farmed? I would encourage readers to buy NZ pork, and to support the local industry and our farmers.

Anyway, back to the sausages. They were cooked in a pan while the shepherd’s pie was in the oven. They cooked nicely and were pleasant on the palate. The fennel seeds have been ground so there are not whole seeds in the sausage. On the continuum of pork and fennel sausages these have a slight hint of fennel as opposed to being strongly fennel flavoured. I have reviewed the Island Bay Butchery, link, and Harmony, link, pork and fennel sausages. I would describe these are being on par with, or maybe a bit less fennel flavour than the Harmony sausages. They are a meaty sausage that is dense and enjoyable to chew.

The kids and my wife both enjoyed the sausages and said they were nice. I enjoyed these and would buy them again.