Right, here's how it goes...
I have been working at this for a while. It may not be to everyone's taste and is, no doubt, improvable but that's the beauty of this game isn't it?!
I was trying to get it right by adding and taking away to the sausage mix but what I really wanted was to get the taste of the chutney right so that the sausage itself could be really simple.
This led to some tinkering with both recipe, cooking and quantities but I am now entirely happy.
Chutney
1000g red onions chopped fairly thin
3 bay leaves
good glug of olive oil
teaspoon of our own hot sauce (use your favourite - Tabasco, Encona etc)
220g dark moscavado sugar
175ml balsamic vinegar (actual balsamic vinegar, not wine vinegar with a bit of grape must and caramel!)
100ml home made red wine vinegar (generally a mix of various left over Italians and Spanish with some Chilean!)
75ml Pedro Ximenez Sherry Vinegar (Gran Reserva 25 Yr)
cook onions slowly in oil with bay, when really sweated down, add vinegars and cook low and patient for another 90 -120 mins until really sticky then stir in sugar and hot sauce, leave for another 30 - 40 mins
cool and jar it up - this stuff is clearly good to have about anyway regardless of any sausage based plans for it.
Sausage recipe
simplicity itself because all the effort went into getting the taste of the chutney right.
1000g 80/20 pork
12g fine sea salt
2.5g fresh ground black pepper
100g pinhead rusk
50g ice water
110g chutney
grind very cold pork through fairly fine plate
hand mix in the rest of the stuff along with water
mix for at least 5 mins in a big mixer (or bloody ages by hand)
stuff in hogs and link
hang in the chiller overnight and most the next day
eat for your tea and make everyone smile.