On the eve of the New Year, the season of mass invasion of stores begins. Among other things, buyers pay special attention to sausages.
And how can we have a holiday without it? It will decorate the table on its own, and it is also an ingredient in many other dishes.
Whatever you say, you need it, sausage. And it would be good if it were high-quality and tasty. Otherwise, sometimes the purchase leaves bitter impressions in every sense.
Below are a few signs that will help you understand whether the sausage in front of you in the store is good or not.
And if you doubt the quality of the product at home, then iodine will finally dot all the i’s.
Cheap is not always cheerful
First of all, it is worth understanding that by trying to save money by choosing the cheapest of what is available, you greatly increase the chances of buying a low-quality product.
A good sausage, a priori, cannot cost less than the meat from which it is actually made.
GOST
Don’t be fooled by the tempting inscription “made according to GOST” that appears on the front of the packaging.
This could be a marketing ploy. Information about production standards should also be provided on the back.
And remember: doctor's sausage cannot be made according to GOST, because it does not include this grade.
Product composition
Please pay attention to the composition of the sausage: there should be nothing but meat, lard, spices and potassium nitrate (antibacterial additive).
In this case, meat should be listed first in the ingredients list. And not just “pork” or “poultry meat”, but graded meat.
If the sausage is of high quality, it will not contain complex food additives, carrageenan, gum, starch, or soy.
If there are any, you should know that the manufacturer has saved on meat.
Also, do not buy sausages that list “animal protein” as ingredients without specifying the type of meat.
In this case, “animal protein” is often called skin, cartilage, veins, etc. That is, in essence, the buyer is being deceived.
We don’t buy if we see mechanically separated meat in the ingredients.
This meat is the result of grinding the entire chicken carcass together with the bones, skin and connective tissue.
It is better not to buy it if the composition includes sodium glutamate or E621 - good sausage does not contain such an additive, since it is simply not needed.
If the information about the composition of the sausage is written small and illegibly, difficult to read, do not buy such a product.
Manufacturers of good sausages usually do not hide anything in their ingredients.
Color
Too bright is a signal to think. Natural sausage is grey.
But dry-cured sausages, on the contrary, have a rich dark color, which indicates the presence of horse meat or beef in the composition.
If there is lard in the sausage, it should be white, without yellowness.
White bloom on dry-cured and smoked sausages is possible. There are also some types of sausages with noble mold.
In other cases, you shouldn't buy sausage with a coating.
Shell
The sausage casing should fit tightly to the product and be smooth. The exception is smoked sausage, the surface of which is wrinkled.
As a rule, low-quality sausages and hot dogs are packed in inedible casings, and high-quality sausages are packed in casings made of cellulose and protein.
Iodine
You can check the quality of cooked sausage at home. Iodine will help with this.
Let's drop a little bit of the product. If the stain turns blue, it means the sausage is full of starch.
If the sausage is of good quality, the stain will remain brown.
