Cook your sausages with care and you'll have a feast fit for the gods. Hugo Arnold on the humble banger.
Whether to fry or grill, season with ketchup or mustard, go easy on the butter or let rip, the making of a sausage sandwich is no easy matter. Decisions have to be made. But what joy when you get it right: crusty bread, the juices from your well-browned specimens mixing with the butter - and maybe a lettuce leaf or three.
Sausages are nothing if not versatile. As well as making a sandwich to pine for, they braise well, will eke out a roast chicken to feed six, if not more, and work well with pulses, from lentils to cannellini, borlotti to flageolets. Broken up, they can dress pasta with style and gusto, and, added to a risotto, they give it real oomph. It may be more usual to make chilli with beef, but try substituting sausages for chilli with a difference.
I like the outside of my sausages to be sticky and dark. A little crispness does no harm. Yet care is also required. An unctuous interior is crucial. Any note of dryness removes all the charm. You want succulence, with some texture and bite. Added flavourings, such as fennel or oregano, can be a hit. But too often this notion gets out of control. Who on earth wants mint in a sausage, or ginger for that matter? For me the sausage plays the leading role.
There was a move some time ago to suggest that pricking sausages was a good idea. It isn't. That was a nasty idea dreamed up by the anti-fat brigade. A well-made sausage will leach out fat and moisture through its natural casing. This is one reason the so-called humble banger is a triumph of invention.
Cook long and slow. A good 15 minutes in a heavy frying pan is ideal - and in one that is oven-proof is even better. Once you have started everything off on top and got your sausages to a good colour, transfer the pan to a hot oven, 180 degrees/gas four, which means your kitchen is not filled with the smell of frying.
SAUSAGES, MUSTARD MASH AND ONION GRAVY:
8 large good-quality sausages
oil for frying
2 red onions, peeled and cut into thin rings
1 level tsp caster sugar
sherry vinegar or balsamic vinegar
200ml chicken stock
1kg floury potatoes, peeled and quartered
100ml double cream
60ml full-cream milk
1 tbsp English mustard
50g unsalted butter
Brown the sausages in a little oil in a large frying pan. When cooked, transfer them to a warm oven.
Add the onions to the hot frying pan and saute for 10 minutes. Sprinkle the sugar over them and cook for a further two or three minutes, until the onions start to colour. Sprinkle with about two teaspoons of the vinegar - and watch out, as it will splutter. Add the chicken stock and cook everything down to a nice, gooey mess.
Put the potatoes in a saucepan of salted boiling water and simmer them for 10-15 minutes, or until tender. Drain them thoroughly and mash. You can do this in advance and allow the potato to go cold.
Combine the cream and milk and bring almost to the boil. Melt the butter in a saucepan and whisk in the potato and milk with a wooden spoon, adding a quarter of the milk and then a quarter of the potato, alternating until everything has been added. When you reach the right consistency and are ready to serve, stir in the mustard.
ITALIAN SAUSAGES WITH WILTED GREENS, GARLIC AND ROSEMARY:
These are the coarse, all-pork sausages available from good delicatessens.
450g spring greens
1 head garlic, split into cloves and peeled
olive oil
8 sausages
1 glass white wine
1 tbsp chopped fresh rosemary
Parmesan
Heat a large pot of salted water, and when it is boiling add the spring greens. Bring the water back to the boil and cook the greens for two minutes, or until tender. Remove and refresh them under cold water.
Add the garlic to the water, return to the boil and simmer for one minute. Drain and similarly refresh in cold water. Bring a cup of water to the boil and again blanch and refresh the garlic. Doing this lessens the strength of the garlic.
Heat three tablespoons of olive oil and saute the sausages until they are almost cooked. Add the greens and coat well in the oil. Cover the pot loosely and cook, stirring occasionally, for five minutes.
Remove the lid, add the white wine, season with salt and pepper and continue cooking for a further five minutes. Stir in the chopped rosemary and garlic. Continue to stir over a high heat for two minutes and serve with shavings of Parmesan sprinkled on top.
SAUSAGES WITH CREAMED LEEKS AND MUSTARD BROCCOLI
6 leeks
1 tbsp butter
8 sausages
2 tsp black mustard seeds
1 tbsp Dijon mustard
2 generous handfuls of sprouting broccoli (or roughly chopped standard broccoli)
4 tbsp cream
Trim the leeks and chop into three-centimetre lengths. Heat the butter in a small pan and add the leeks, along with a generous seasoning of salt and pepper. Cover the pot and stew over a gentle heat for 10 minutes, or until the leeks are just tender. Allow to cool slightly, liquidise them, return to the pan and set aside.
Fry, grill or roast the sausages until they are cooked. Heat the mustard seeds in a dry frying pan with a lid on top - they hop about a lot. Put in a warmed bowl with the Dijon mustard. Cut any tough stalks off the broccoli and cook it in plenty of salted water until tender - about five minutes. Drain and roughly chop it. Add to the bowl and stir to coat with the seeds and mustard.
Gently reheat the leeks and stir the cream into them. Check the seasoning and serve with the cooked sausages and the broccoli alongside.
TOULOUSE SAUSAGES WITH CELERIAC PUREE AND BRAISED SHALLOTS
1 head of celeriac
1 onion
4 cloves
olive oil
milk
8 Toulouse sausages
450g shallots, peeled
300ml cider
Peel the celeriac and roughly chop into equal-sized chunks. Place it in a saucepan of boiling salted water, along with the onion studded with the cloves. Cook until tender. Drain, remove the cloves from the onion and liquidise the onion and the celeriac. Beat in four tablespoons of olive oil and enough milk to form the desired consistency - about a glass. Set aside and keep it warm.
Fry the sausages in a little oil until cooked through, then reserve in a warm place. Put the shallots in the same pan, coat thoroughly in oil, cover with tin foil, lower the heat and cook until tender - about five minutes. Remove and keep warm.
Drain any excess oil from the pan, add the cider and reduce, scraping up any bits from the bottom of the pan, until the liquid becomes a syrup. Serve the sausages with the celeriac and shallots.
Recipes serve 4
SWEET TREAT FOR EASTER: SIMNEL CAKE
Perhaps the strongest claim for the origins of this traditional cake is that it was baked by servant girls to take home to their mothers for what is now known as Mothering Sunday, then kept for Easter. What is undeniable, however, is that it is a delectable treat, especially for almond lovers.
175g softened unsalted butter
175 pale muscovado sugar
3 large eggs
225 plain flour
50g ground almonds
1 tsp mixed spice
75g flaked almonds
175g golden sultanas
115g currants
175g raisins
75g chopped mixed peel
2 tbsp amaretto
550g almond paste (ready-made is fine)
2 tbsp apricot jam
Sugar paste to decorate
Preheat the oven to 160 degrees/gas three. Cream the butter and sugar together until the mixture is light and fluffy. Lightly beat the eggs and add to the creamed butter and sugar, together with the flour, ground almonds and spice. Add a little at a time, stirring thoroughly.
Fold in the flaked almonds, the fruits and the peel, beating gently with a wooden spoon until thoroughly mixed. Stir in the amaretto.
Divide the almond paste in half, then divide one of the halves in half again. Roll one of the smaller portions into a circle about 18cm round and place the remaining balls of paste in a polythene bag.
Grease and line an 18cm cake tin and pile half of the cake mixture into the bottom, smoothing carefully. Place one of the circles of almond paste on top, then spoon the remaining cake mixture into the tin and smooth the surface.
Bake for 90 minutes, then cover the cake with a sheet of brown paper, reduce the temperature to 140 degrees/gas one. Continue baking for a further hour or until the cake is well risen and feels firm to the touch. It will smell ready. Leave in the tin until completely cold.
The following day, remove the cake from the tin and peel away the paper. Lightly brush the cake with warmed apricot jam and apply the second rolled-out circle of almond paste to the top.
Use the rest of the almond paste to decorate the cake before briefly browning it under a warm grill or with a blowtorch. Finally, decorate with a few fresh spring flowers and some sugar-paste rabbits.
This recipe comes from cake designer Sarah Talbot of The Sweetest Thing (046-9433838), who made and decorated the cake pictured.