Pork Scratchings have to be one of the best British beery bar snacks out there, crunch and salty they go with pretty much any beer you can lay your hands on.
Unfortunately it would seem that the majority of packets of scratchings use rind from Danish Pigs, this travesty has lead Tom Parker Bowles and Matthew Fort into creating what they are calling a revolutionary new pork crackling product.
lovely branding!
Mr Trotters uses 100% British pork rind which is slow cooked in small batches to give the crackling a lovely solid crunch, without making them rock hard. They also contain no MSG and they are seasoned with sea salt and a special seasoning to give them an extra punch.
As you’d expect they aren’t the healthiest snack on the planet so it’s a good idea to share the bag, which I have to say is very nicely designed, much better than the majority of horrible plastic bags you get scratchings in.
The crackling its self has a nice flavour, not to salty, they were nice and crunchy, not quite as crunchy as some but at least there’s little chance of breaking your teeth on them. There was a good mix of big chunky bits and smaller thinner bits of rind. They seem to be a bit of a halfway house between those traditional butchers style scratchings which are really hard and have little bits of hair on and those pork crunches you get which are more like crisps thank crackling.
I’d paired them with the awesome NZ Pale from Hawkshead Brewery and the salt cut through the hops quite well, wasn’t sure if it would work but it did and very well.
They should be available in shops, bars and selfridges now and retail at around £1.89 per pack which is a little more than most scratchings but they work a little bit better as a sharing bag.
Mr Trotters Crackling is well worth a try if you see them or if you’re not keen on the super hard ones that most pubs and bars stock.
Why anyone would pay money for pork scratchings is beyond me – make your own. Honestly, it is simple and very, very cheap. Any decent, local butcher will give you a slab of pig skin (just ask if the pig is British – which it probably will be) for nothing, or at least as little as a 50p donation to the charity jar like my one does. Then it’s only a matter of some simple prep work and then roughly 90 minutes in the oven. Guaranteed to taste better than anything you buy in a bag or from a shop – I promise you. You can even mess around with the prep and timing and ‘customise’ then to your own taste and preferences. I like mine more crunchy and I even make some curry flavoured ones. The perfect beer partner. It’s easy to find a good ‘recipe’ on the internet with step by step instructions. Go for one that oven bakes them instead of deep frying them.
£1.89 per bag. Are you having a laugh? They sell ‘em for 50p a bag in my local.
I bought a packet of these the other day and they were *ok* but quite dry and certainly not the best I’ve had. Also, the disgusting fat pig on the packet is a little off-putting.
They are dry and really not very nice at all. My local sells freshly made pork scratchings on a platter.
And the price is absurd.