Tuesday 16 January 2007

IN SEARCH OF SAUSAGE PERFECTION

Yesterday on my walk to work I stopped off at our local butcher, Crombie's of Edinburgh. It is sometimes hard to feel like choosing meat first thing in the morning but I can always be tempted by the range of sausages here. I'm obviously in good sausage company as the owner of Crombie's has appeared in Heston Blumenthal's new book, 'In Search of Perfection', giving Heston sausage making tips.

As usual I couldn't decide on just one type of sausage so picked two each of peppered pork and lemon, mediterranean pork, and pork and caramelised onion. To go with this sausage feast I decided on a basic diced beetroot and spring onion salad and the baked potato salad from Nigella Lawson's 'Forever Summer', which is just the flesh of some baked potatoes mixed with olive oil, lemon juice, sumac, cumin, spring onion and salt. One of the best things about this is that, while waiting for the sausages to finish cooking, we can snack on crispy potato skins sprinkled with maldon salt - a great gin and tonic accompaniment.



As usual I chose to cook these sausages in a medium oven, which produces the perfect sticky skin and means that I don't have to stand watching them like a hawk and can relax in the evening. This is a perfect easy alternative when we want the comfort of bangs and mash but don't want something quite as heavy.

4 comments:

Anna's kitchen table said...

Yum! I looove sausage and mash.

How lovely that your butchers is so great!!

Sam said...

i think only us Brits know the sticky skin baked sausage trick. I am currently reading Hestons book and one of my 2007 resolutions is to try making sausage, so at some time this year I am going to have to knuckle down and try to do it.

Lady M said...

What a coincidink, I also made bangers and pots the other day. I'm not sure what the 'sticky skin' baking trick is, but what I do is just score the skin and cook in a roasting dish -- 45 minutes at 200C or something like that...

:)))

xoxo
Ilana

Gemma said...

Yes a good butchers is a rare treat these days (she says like someone much older than 27!)

Sam - sticky skin is so important in a sausage. I find 30-40 minutes at about 190 degrees C in a pyrex dish works for me but I wouldn't want to guarantee that it would work for anyone else! Good luck with the sausage making.

Ilana - ok maybe some non Brits have the trick too! I'll have to try scoring the skin, I normally just leave it.

Gemma x