It was the sort of wintertime evening when only sausages would do, and I came property with both equally my favorite butcher’s wide range and a packet of plump Italian ones – coarse textured and seasoned with fennel seeds and dried chilli. I cooked the lot slowly and gradually, so that their skins had been shiny and sticky as Marmite.
For want of potatoes – which I forgot to decide on up at the grocer’s– I crushed white haricot beans with a bunch of steamed spinach leaves and turned them into a mound of fluffy, inexperienced-freckled mash.
I must say that pretty substantially any sausage and mash is welcome at my desk, but the very best will generally be those people whose meat is coarsely ground and open up-textured, cooked with care and a watchful eye. The mash can be everything that is delicate and silky – pumpkin, potato, chickpea or cannellini bean, or even a combination of roots, such as parsnips or swede – the latter currently being welcome only when served with copious quantities of salted butter and coarsely floor black pepper.
I will from time to time mash chickpeas to go with merguez sausages (I also stir in a small za’atar), and creamed haricot with garlicky Toulouse sausages. Rosemary-spiked cannellini mash is beautiful with Italian fennel sausages.
Very last wintertime a puddle of buttery parsnip purée sat especially properly with a plate of black pudding and I suspect it will yet again this calendar year.
Baked sausages with spinach cannellini
If you are mixing your sausages, then I counsel you set the plumper type in to cook initially in advance of introducing the thinner ones. (All those with a good girth will need a decrease warmth if they are not to break up.) You could include product to the spinach and haricot bean mash – not significantly, but it is fantastic as it is. A knob of butter stirred in at the finish is a pleasant touch, but superior however would be warm juices from the sausage pan.
Adequate for 4
groundnut or vegetable oil 3 tbsp
assorted sausages 1kg
rosemary sprigs 8
garlic 8 cloves
bay leaves 3
For the beans:
spinach leaves 200g
rooster inventory 200ml
cannellini beans 2 x 400g cans
Clean the spinach leaves and discard any thick stems. Place the leaves, however dripping moist, in a deep pan, protected by a limited lid, around a average warmth. Let them steam for a minute or two, then flip the leaves in excess of with tongs and steam for a further moment right until they are collapsed and shiny green. Eliminate from the heat and rinse the spinach briefly in chilly water, squeeze firmly, then leave to awesome.
Put the spinach in the bowl of a foods processor or blender.
Pour the chicken stock into a deep pan. Drain the cannellini beans, insert to the rooster inventory and deliver to the boil. Lower the warmth and enable the beans simmer for about 5 minutes. Add them and their stock to the spinach and approach briefly, right until you have a coarse purée. (Choose treatment not to overprocess or it will become gluey in texture.)
Cook the sausages: place a large frying pan over a moderate warmth. Heat the oil in a shallow pan to which you have a lid above a lower to moderate warmth. Insert the sausages, starting off with the fats types initial prior to adding the thinner, more compact ones a handful of minutes afterwards. Tuck in the rosemary sprigs, garlic cloves and bay leaves, then allow the sausages brown evenly. Maintain a shut eye on them, turning when the underside is a shiny, golden brown.
Spoon the spinach and bean purée into a tiny saucepan and warm in excess of a average heat, stirring so it does not stick, then serve with the sausages.
Panna cotta with blood orange and pomegranate
Pomegranates and deep carmine blood oranges make a cracking accompaniment for panna cotta. The dessert is at the perfect wobble just after about 4 hrs in the fridge, but will appear to no damage if you leave it for a longer period, even overnight. The portion is tiny – I use a fairly mould that holds 175ml, which I uncover is just adequate for a single.
Can make 4 tiny dishes
For the panna cotta:
green cardamom pods 12
double product 400ml
total-cream milk 125ml
caster sugar 90g
gelatine 2 sheets
For the fruit:
pomegranate 1
blood oranges 2
Crack open up the cardamom pods and extract the seeds, then crush them to a coarse powder employing a pestle and mortar. Place the cardamom in a tiny, nonstick pan with the cream, milk and sugar, and position in excess of a average heat. Deliver the product practically to the boil, then clear away from the warmth, cover with a plate and depart to infuse for 30 minutes.
Soak the gelatine in a bowl of chilly h2o for 10 minutes or until it has develop into soft. Heat the infused product carefully, stirring constantly, for 2 or 3 minutes, but on no account enable it appear to the boil. Elevate the gelatine from the h2o and fall into the product, stirring with a picket spoon till it has dissolved, then take away from the heat.
Pour the cream by a sieve suspended over a jug. Pour into 4 modest ramekins and refrigerate for 4 several hours, or until finally flippantly set.
Halve the pomegranate, take away the seeds, discard any with pith, and help save as substantially juice as you can. Slice the peel from the oranges and clear away any pith. Slice into segments, removing the skin as you go and mix with the pomegranate.
Heat the ramekins briefly by dipping them for a several seconds in hot water, then flip out the panna cotta into compact dishes. Spoon the pomegranate, orange segments and their juices in excess of the tiny puddings at the final moment.
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