There are more than 470 recipes and flavours for sausages in Britain. If you take into account all the different variations from butchers across the country you could eat a different British sausage every day for 10 years!
While we think of the banger as a quintessentially British dish, its origins are more exotic and can be traced back some 5000 years to Sumeria, modern day Iraq. Indeed, far from the dinner plates of dear old Blighty, by 900 BC sausages had become the popcorn of the ancient Greek theatre, available from sausage sellers in the aisles. While in 320 AD the Roman Emperor Constantinus I and the Catholic Church banned sausage eating because of links to pagan festivals, which lead to sausages going underground until the ban was lifted.
The sausage was in trouble again nine hundred years ago. Emperor Leo V declared that sausage makers would be ‘severely scourged, smoothly shaved and banished from our realm forever’. It is not known what sausage sellers had done to cause such offence. Henry V stated, “War without fire is as worthless as sausages without mustard,” and it was in the reign of Charles I when sausages were divided into links for the first time.
It is also said that notorious highwayman, Dick Turpin, was known to moonlight as a butcher making sausages from the finest meats hunted in Epping Forest. There is nothing rogueish about the seven recipes we have put together with the help of the British Sausage Appreciation Society – they may not do much for your New Year health resolutions, but with flavours this good, who cares?
Scrummy scrumpy pasties with sausage, apple & cider
Makes: 6-8 pasties
Takes: 40 minutes
Ingredients
4 pork and apple sausages
3 tbsp cider or apple juice
1 eating apple, cored and thinly sliced
Black pepper
1 sprig fresh sage, roughly chopped
500g packet puff pastry
1 egg mixed with milk to glaze
Method
1. Preheat oven to Gas 4-5 / 180oC / 350oF.
2. Slit the sausage skins, remove the sausage meat and place in a large bowl.
3. Add to this the cider, apple, pepper and sage. Mix together.
4. Roll pastry out thinly and cut into 6-8 circles (about 12½cm / 5”) then re-roll pastry to make more if possible. Place a spoonful of the mixture in the centre.
5. Wet edges with water and fold circle in half, crimp edge to seal.
6. Place on greased trays and cook for 30-40 minutes until golden brown.
7. Serve hot or cold, picnic or lunch with a large seasonal salad or slaw and a chunky fruit chutney.
Chunky sausage with rooty mash
Makes: 4
Takes: 20 minutes
Ingredients
450g chunky pork traditional sausages
1tbsp olive oil
1 onion, peeled and sliced
2 sprigs fresh thyme
½pt stock (+ add a splash of sweet local ale)
1-2tbsp gravy granules
Rooty Mash:
450g potatoes, peeled and cut into quarters
3 parsnips, peeled and sliced
½ celeriac, peeled and cut into chunks
12g butter
Black pepper
Method
1. Preheat oven to Gas 4-5 / 180oC / 350oF.
2. Place potatoes, parsnips and celeriac into a large saucepan of cold water. Bring to the boil and simmer until vegetables are tender.
3. Heat oil in large saucepan and add onion and cook gently until soft and starting to brown. Add a pinch of sugar if it’s a little bitter.
4. Add splash of ale, stock, gravy granules and simmer to achieve your desired thickness of gravy.
5. Place sausages under a pre-heated grill and cook for about 10 minutes until browned and cooked through.
6. Drain root vegetables and mash together with butter and seasoning.
7. Serve with a heap of seasonal green vegetables.
Cumberland sausage with lentils, cabbage, & cheese wensleydale mash
Makes: 4
Takes: 50 minutes
Ingredients
450g cumberland sausage
1tbsp olive oil
1 red onion, cut in thin wedges
2 carrots, peeled and sliced
2 lean rashers bacon, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, squashed
2 fresh thyme sprigs
200g can green lentils, rinsed and drained
½pt pork stock
¼ savoy cabbage, roughly shredded
2tbsp fresh parsley, roughly chopped
Prepared mashed potato
Wensleydale cheese or Cheddar, grated
Method
1. Preheat oven to Gas 4-5 / 180oC / 350oF.
2. In a large pan heat oil, add sausages and brown all over. Add onion, carrots, bacon, garlic, thyme and lentils, and brown slightly.
3. Transfer to a deep roasting pan and add stock.
4. Cover with foil and cook for 30 minutes. Remove foil, add cabbage and parsley, submerge in liquid and cook for a further 10 minutes with foil.
5. Serve with mash potato sprinkled with Wensleydale cheese.
Sausage Lancashire hotpot with sage, thyme & black pudding
Makes: 4
Takes: 1½ hours
Ingredients
450g chunky pork sausages
900g potatoes, peeled and thinly sliced
1tbsp oil
1 onion, peeled and roughly chopped
½ small butternut squash, peeled and cut into small cubes
100g black pudding, roughly cubed
Fresh sage sprigs
Fresh thyme sprigs
¼pt pork stock
Seasoning
1tbsp butter
50g Lancashire or Cheddar cheese, crumbled/grated
Method
1. Preheat oven to Gas 4-5 / 180oC / 350oF.
2. Place potatoes in a large pan of cold water and bring to the boil. Cook for a few minutes until the potatoes just begin to soften and drain.
3. Heat oil in large saucepan and brown onion and sausages.
4. Place a layer of potatoes on the base of a large ovenproof casserole pot. Top with sausages, half the butternut squash and black pudding, a sprig of fresh thyme and sage.
5. Add the remaining butternut squash and black pudding and pour over the stock. Top with remaining sliced potato, season, dot with butter and sprinkle with cheese.
6. Cover with foil and cook for 40 minutes, remove foil and cook for a further 30 minutes until browned and golden.
7. Serve with extra steamed seasonal vegetables.
Pork & tomato sausage mini puddings with mustard & thyme suet
Makes: 4
Takes: 1 hour
Ingredients
450g pork and tomato sausages
1 onion, chopped
2 flat mushrooms, sliced
¼pt stock
Seasoning
1tbsp tomato purée
Suet:
300g Self raising flour
150g Suet
1tbsp Fresh thyme, chopped
2tsp English mustard
Water to bind
Method
1. Preheat oven to Gas 4-5 / 180oC / 350oF.
2. Squeeze meat from sausage skins and roughly make each sausage into 4 balls. Place in cold pan, increase heat and allow to slowly seal and brown the balls.
3. Add onion, mushrooms, stock, seasoning and purée, mix together. Allow mixture to cool slightly.
4. Make Suet Pastry: Place flour into a bowl with suet. Add fresh thyme, mustard and seasoning. Add enough water to bind (approximately 180ml / 6fl oz). Roll pastry out on a floured surface to line 2 lightly greased pudding basins (300ml / ½pt or one large) leaving an ‘overhang’of pastry.
5. Spoon the meat mixture into the pudding(s) and ‘fold over’ suet lid and squash roughly together, cover with lightly greased foil. Cook in a preheated oven for 1 hour. Remove the foil carefully for the last 10 minutes to brown the pastry if it needs it.
6. Serve with large helping of seasonal green vegetables, mashed carrot and parsnip.
Roasted sausage & autumn veg bake with berry jam
Makes: 4
Takes: 40-50 minutes
Ingredients
450g traditional sausages
3 cloves garlic, squashed
½ pumpkin, peeled and cut into thin wedges or 3 sweet potatoes or ½ butternut squash, cut into small wedges or cubes
2 large sprigs rosemary
2tbsp olive oil
450g new potatoes, halved
2 large parsnips, peeled and cut into quarters
1tsp dried chilli flakes (optional)
Berry Jam:
1tbsp oil
1 onion, peeled and finely sliced
2 pears, peeled, cored and sliced
2 tbsp redcurrant jelly
2tbsp water
150g blackberries or other seasonal berries
½tsp ground ginger
Method
1. Preheat oven to Gas 5 / 190oC / 375oF.
2. Toss together in a large roasting pan sausages, garlic, pumpkin, rosemary, olive oil, new potatoes, parsnips and dried chilli flakes.
3. Bake in oven for 40-50 minutes until sausages are golden brown and pumpkin is soft.
4. Make Berry Jam: Heat oil in a heavy based pan, add onion and cook slowly until softened and browned. Add remaining ingredients and cook for a further 5 minutes stirring.
5. Cover the pan and cook on a reduced heat for approx 10 minutes. Serve hot or cold with the sausage and vegetables.
Sausage Bakewells – with Lincolnshire sausage, apple & cheese
Makes: 12 tarts
Takes: 20 minutes
Ingredients
225g Lincolnshire chipolata sausages, squeezed in half, twist to make each sausage into two
500g puff pastry
Chunky apple sauce
1 eating apple, cored and sliced
1 small onion, peeled and thinly sliced
30g sage Derby cheese or Cheddar, grated
30g breadcrumbs
Method
1. Preheat oven to Gas 6 / 200oC / 400oF.
2. Roll out pastry and cut into circles to fit muffin tin.
3. Push pastry into greased tin. Add to the base 2.5ml / ½tsp apple sauce, top with a small sausage and slice of apple and onion.
4. Mix together cheese and breadcrumbs and sprinkle a spoonful on top of each tart.
5. Bake for about 25 minutes until pastry is ‘puffed’ and golden and sausage browned and cooked.
6. Serve as a snack with vegetables or mixed salad, or cold in a lunchbox or picnic.
These recipes can all be found on the British Sausage Appreciation Society website.
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