20 Year Celebration with Sausage Sizzle at Forest School

09 Jul 2020

Wellington Prep School reception children enjoyed an al fresco sausage-making masterclass and Sausage sizzle BBQ at their purpose-built Forest School by award-winning sausage aficionado, Chris Potter of Tim Potter Family Butchers.

The ‘Sausage Sizzle’ event was part of a year-long celebration of twenty years of Wellington Prep School, with the launch of a special celebratory Wellington Sausage to mark the occasion.  The school has joined forces with Tim Potter Family Butchers to create a fabulous ‘Wellington Sausage’.  Thirty percent of profits from sales of the sausage will go towards providing curriculum enrichment activities and equipment for children at the school.

Chris Potter was the perfect guest teacher to showcase his expert sausage-making skills to the enthusiastic four and five-year olds in a pop-up field kitchen at their purpose-built Forest School just a short distance from the school. Chris commandeered ‘Sydney the Sausage Making Machine’ to involve the children in an interactive sausage-making demonstration where they all got involved in creating the special ‘Wellington Sausage’ pork mince mix, seasoned to perfection with salt, pepper and nutmeg!

The children saw how natural casings are first soaked in water to reduce the salt, then filled by hand-winding the handle of the machine (everyone had a turn) to create the sumptuous Wellington Sausage, then hand-tied ready to rest for twenty-four hours before being ready to eat – the hand-tying was much harder than Chris made it look, but the children made a great effort.

Headmaster Adam Gibson, who attended the Sausage Sizzle event at the Forest School and very much enjoyed getting involved in the sausage-making, commented “at Wellington Prep School, we pride ourselves on rich and varied curriculum enrichment.  It’s great for the children to see how sausages are made from scratch, and how it is possible to cook in such a rural environment on charcoal to create a tasty treat.  We will be serving The Wellington Sausage at various events throughout the year to celebrate twenty years of Wellington Prep School.  We look forward to welcoming Chris to perform a further sausage-making demo to the whole school in a special 20th Anniversary Headmaster’s Assembly later this week.”

In true ‘here’s one I made earlier’ fashion, Wellington Sausages made at Chris’ shop the day before were grilled on the Kamado Joe ceramic BBQ on charcoal, in keeping with the outdoor theme.  This was because the freshly made sausages had to rest for a further twenty-four hours in order to for the sausage meat to bind with the skins.  The all-weather grill rose perfectly to the challenge and the sausages were cooked and browned to perfection and ‘Welly Dogs’ were thoroughly enjoyed by all the children.

Chris commented, “at Tim Potter Family Butchers, we love getting involved with our local community and supporting education. Collaborating with Wellington Prep School to create The Wellington Sausage and giving sausage-making demonstrations to pupils underpins these values.  I am extremely passionate about sausage-making and hope to enter The Wellington Sausage in the UK Sausage Week national competition next October – It may even secure the Champion of Champions title I won 2015!”