Snackrite Traditional Pork Scratchings Review: Surprisingly Good for a Supermarket Bag
Snackrite Traditional Pork Scratchings come in a 65g bag, which is a good size for one sitting. The packet promises “finest quality”, “rich flavour” and “traditionally double cooked” scratchings. I’m never sure how to measure a claim like “finest quality”, but the flavour promise sounded encouraging.
The front of the bag also shows the percentage of an adult’s reference intake. The catch is that the figures are for half a bag. That serving contains 10% of the daily energy reference intake and 0g of sugar, though the fat, saturates and salt are all marked high. So much for my hopes of a pork scratching superfood.
First Impressions
Opening the bag, the smell is fine. It isn’t especially inviting, but there’s none of the fishy smell that some pork scratchings have.
The pieces are mostly small, with no medium-sized chunks or enormous jawbreakers. I’d have liked a few bigger ones, but it’s a minor complaint. There’s plenty of seasoning dust on the scratchings and stuck to the inside of the bag. The pieces have bubbly skin, light fat and, pleasingly, a few bits of meat.
Despite being double-cooked and closer to a crackling style, a handful of pieces have the hard bite I associate with traditional pork scratchings.
Flavour and Texture
The ingredients include pork rind, salt, MSG and flavourings, along with rice flour, sugar and caramelised sugar powder. MSG appears fairly high on the list, and the flavour is certainly intense. There’s no yeast extract, which I often see in scratchings, while rice flour is an ingredient I don’t recall coming across before. The sugar gives them a subtle sweetness, with the caramelised sugar powder seemingly adding a little more depth.
The salt level feels just right at first, but becomes a bit much towards the end of the bag. Fortunately, I had a bottle of Shipyard Session IPA to help me along.
At the bottom sits a generous pile of tiny, heavily seasoned bits: salty, porky gravel with even more flavour than the larger pieces. Another sip of beer was needed.
The Verdict
After a recent, disappointing bag of Aldi’s Spanish Iberian-style torreznos, I wasn’t expecting much from these Snackrite pork scratchings. They turned out to be a pleasant surprise: crunchy, full of flavour and very enjoyable, even if they get a little too salty by the end.
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