sausage

Sausage, chard and borlotti beans

12 Comments / sausages, The Ordinary Cook /

We have just come back from a two-week holiday in Madeira.  It was very warm, relaxing and enjoyable.  It is lovely to get away but I think it is even better to come home. We always look forward to getting back to the pets, including these three, who we missed a lot. The big lad is Merlin (what else could he be called?), the black kitten is Wobble and the tortoiseshell is Wibble.

The other lovely thing to come back to is the garden.  It is amazing how much things grow in two weeks. The borlotti beans have really begun to shine with masses of beautiful speckled pods hidden amongst the pale leaves.

They really are very beautiful.

The chard is a good size ( at last, it seemed to be forever germinating).  The runner beans are still coming, thanks to mum and dad picking them regularly whilst we were away.  A few tomatoes have begun to ripen, they seem very slow this year, but in contrast the damsons have begun to fall from the tree – that is the earliest we can ever remember that happening. The patty pan squash are beginning to be prolific and the cucumber is bearing some fruit too. The chillies are taking over and I may go into the greenhouse one day and never be able to get out again!

I spent an enjoyable half hour last night picking and shelling the borlotti, preparing some of the red, gold and white chard (this is the first time we have grown it and we will definitely grow it again) and discovering the treasures that can be unearthed in the potato patch.  The latter include some gorgeous purple potatoes that my dear blogger friend Choclette sent me about two years ago.  They are a heritage breed originally from Peru and whilst they really do make a marvellous mash they were also very delicious as part of last night’s tea along with some Anyas which self set from last year’s plants.

I added some sausages from the local butcher and Bob’s your uncle a delicious dinner that celebrates a much missed garden.

 This is a dish which is very adaptable, if you don’t have potatoes use some pasta, if you don’t have chard then use cabbage, or green beans or runner beans.  I cooked the borlotti in water with a sprig of rosemary and a clove of garlic (still in its paper) for about ten minutes until tender.  I cooked the sausages in a casserole dish so that the juices gather and crust at the bottom of the dish.  I boiled the potatoes until tender.  I diced the chard stems into 1 cm chunks and cooked with a large knob of butter with a squeeze of lemon juice and salt and pepper until nearly tender, then threw in the sliced leaves for a few minutes more cooking until nicely wilted.  I added about five sage leaves, roughly chopped, to the sausages, then tipped in the beans, potatoes and chard (with all the lovely buttery juices) and cooked until everything is hot and covered in the juices. I then served with crusty bread and a vinaigrette. Lovely!

 

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Sausage and vegetable bake

12 Comments / potato, sausages /

Hunting around for ideas for tea the other night revealed that I had some Spanish style sausage meat left over from the meatballs I made earlier in the week, celery, carrots and  some potatoes busily spurting in the bag. Those potatoes really need using up! So I decided to make a layered bake.

You could replace the Spanish style sausage with any other meat that takes your fancy or you could just leave it out and maybe add a few peppers into the mix for a veggie treat.

1 onion, finely chopped
2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
3 sticks of celery, sliced
3 carrots, peeled and sliced
250g sausage meat
3 large potatoes, peeled and thinly sliced
a few sprigs of thyme
600ml stock ( I used vegetable)
salt and pepper
butter

Method

Butter a shallow baking dish well.  Cover the bottom of the dish with a layer of potatoes. Layer the onions, garlic, celery and carrots and sprinkle with salt and pepper and the thyme.  Break the sausage meat into chunks and place on top. Season again lightly.  Add the final layer of potatoes.  Pour over the stock and then season again lightly. Place small chunks of butter on top.

Cover the dish with foil and bake in a preheated oven at 180°c, gas mark 4 for about 1 hour, until all is tender.  Take off the foil and cook for a further 20 minutes until the top is brown and crispy.

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Sausage and sage pie

11 Comments / pastry, pie, sausages, The Ordinary Cook /

This is one of my all time favourites.  I can’t remember a party from my childhood, or adulthood, when one of these beauties hasn’t been invited.  The pie in the picture is one of mum’s creations and it is from my mum that I have this recipe.  My mum makes the best sausage pies in the world!

I made one for a party we had over the May bank holiday weekend, but with all the pre party chaos I forgot to take a picture of my creation, so I have waited until my mum made her next sausage pie before posting this recipe.  Luckily for me she makes then quite often.

It is always popular and I rarely get a chance for leftovers.  It is important though that you get very good sausage meat from a very good butcher for this pie to be top notch.

500g ready-made all butter puff pastry
1 egg, lightly beaten, to glaze

1kg top quality sausage meat
6-7 tips of sage (by tip I mean the top 3 or 4 leaves of a sprig)
200g onion
salt and pepper

Method

If you don’t have a food processor then chop the onion and sage finely.  If you have a food processor, throw them both in and whizz until finely chopped.   Add them to the sausagemeat in a bowl, add a little salt and pepper and using your hands mix really well together.

Roll the puff pastry out into a large rectangle.  I forgot to measure mine to help with this but think about the baking tray you are going to use and it will probably be about the same size as that.

Place the sausagemeat in the centre of the pastry in a line, leaving an edge of about 3cm.

Fold the pastry over to meet at the top and crimp the edges well.  Place the pie onto a lightly greased baking tray and brush all over with a lightly beaten egg.  (You may have some spare pastry that you need to trim away.  If you do then brush this with egg and sprinkle with grated cheese and cut into fingers, place onto a greased baking sheet and cook for about 8-10 minutes for lovely cheese straws)

Place in a preheated oven at 220°c for about 30 minutes until golden brown.

You can serve this hot but I like it much better cold as the flavours really develop.

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Potato, cabbage and sausage gratin

4 Comments / cabbage, potato, sausages /

This gratin came about from a mixture of things.  I love boulangere potatoes, and a few weeks ago I had a cabbage in the cupboard waiting to be used so I added a layer of cabbage and I was surprised at how good it was.  Then Rachel from Rachel Eats did the most amazing take on Rowley Leigh’s Cabbage and Sausage Cake, her majestic oak tree, as it became known.  Now, before I had read Rachel’s words on the Cabbage and Sausage cake nobody could have convinced me to try such a thing.  However, I was convinced by her words and the art of her photography that it had to be a good thing, so I made it one night a couple of weeks ago.  It tasted divine.  Mine didn’t look as good as Rachel’s, well for one thing I nearly dropped it as I turned it out, but it tasted very good indeed and probably even better reheated the next day. So, I thought perhaps a bit of sausage may just work in my potato and cabbage gratin. And, do you know? It does. So, thank you to Rachel for the inspiration.

When Mr OC ‘phoned me today and asked what was for tea, which is his habit (sometimes he asks me this question when he ‘phones as he walks from the train station to work.  The man thinks about his stomach a great deal! ) and I suggested a potato, cabbage and sausage gratin, I could tell from his tone that he thought this may be a bad idea.  But when he was halfway through eating it tonight he declared it “actually quite good, not as bad as I thought it would be”. I suppose this may not be considered high praise, but his plate was wiped clean by the end so I am taking it as such. He even declared that it didn’t need the gravy that I had forgotten to make.  Anyway, my view on the matter is that it is delicious, and that goes for the dish with or without the sausage.

4 – 5 medium-sized potatoes
5-6 leaves from a savoy cabbage
4-5 good quality sausages
2 cloves of garlic
25g butter
570ml (1 pint) chicken or vegetable stock
½ tsp dried thyme
salt and pepper

Method

Bring a pan of salted water to the boil and blanch the cabbage leaves for two to three minutes.  Drain and rinse under cold running water to cool quickly and fix the green colour.  Shred the cabbage.

Peel the potatoes and slice thinly.  Chop the garlic finely.  Skin the sausages.

Generously butter a gratin dish and layer half the potato, topped with a layer of half the cabbage.  Season with salt and pepper and sprinkle over the chopped garlic.  Dot lumps of the sausage meat over. Layer the remaining cabbage, followed by the remaining potato.  Pour over the stock.  Season and sprinkle with the thyme and dot with the remaining butter.

Cover the dish with foil and cook in a preheated oven at 200°c (gas mark 6) for 30 minutes.  Remove the foil and return to the oven for a further 30-40 minutes until the top is golden and crusty. Serve with good bread to mop up the juices.

Preparing the gratin

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Sausage and butter bean hot pot

3 Comments / chilli, pulses, sausages, stew, tomato /

I have called this a hot-pot for more than one reason, it’s a lovely warming one pot dish, but it also has a fresh chilli and my local butcher’s spicy sausages in it, which are indeed spicy, making it a very hot pot indeed.  You can of course use any sausage you prefer. It’s an easy and quick supper which is lovely served with purple sprouting as we had it, or with pasta or rice or just some good bread to mop up the tomato-ey juices.

6 sausages (spicy if you like)
1 fresh chilli, deseeded and chopped finely
1 clove garlic, peeled and chopped finely
1 small onion, peeled and chopped finely
1 400g tin tomatoes
1 215g tin of butter beans in water, drained
1 bay leaf
salt and pepper

Method

Place the sausages in a large pan with a little olive oil over a medium heat and brown all over.   Add the onion and cook for a few more minutes until beginning to soften, add the chilli and the garlic and cook for a further two minutes, until the onion is translucent.  Add the tomatoes, the butter beans and the bay leaf and season with pepper (don’t add the salt yet or it will toughen the beans). Stir to combine the ingredients and then cook over a gentle heat for at least 20 minutes until you have a rich tomato sauce. Add salt to taste just before serving.

If you have used spicy sausage and you find it too hot for your taste buds you can serve plain greek yoghurt alongside or stir in 2 tablespoons of yoghurt just before serving.

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