Monday 30th

The last of the assignments is in, much to my relief. A weekend of working solidly and socialising a fair bit has meant a rather ropey diet of hungover fry-ups and bits and bobs on the hoof.

This week I’m going to get back in the kitchen and do some proper cooking. Given the cold weather I’m in the mood for serious traditional British comfort food. On the way back home form Salford I work out that I could knock out a sausage and mash combo in about 20mins at a push, but would end up with a completely different meal to what I would have after an hour of cooking.

If French cooking is an art (well that’s what they say…) and Italian cooking is a craft, then British cooking is a science. Its all about the timing and temperature. They even called it ‘domestic science’ at school as well…

Anyhow, enough jiffle: Proper Sausage and Mash

Only good quality sausages will do it. Nice fat ones. Use whatever Wall’s bangers should really just be thrown directly in the bin. Today I’m using some organic pork sausages that have a bit of a herby hint to them. The trick with the sausages is slow, slow cooking. In the pan with some butter on a low heat for minimum 40 minutes. I never prick them, the flavour needs to stay inside the sausage.

I find that red onions or shallots make the best onion gravy for sausage and mash. In this case I chop up a handful of shallots and throw them in the butter with the sausages. Over this low heat they will slowly collapse and become sticky and sweet.

Spuds have to be the white floury ones, mine still have Lincolnshire earth on them. I’ve paid good money in expensive (i.e. overpriced) London restaurants for mash made with waxy spuds and too much butter, and they just sit there looking cheap in the middle of a puddle of gravy.

I bring the spuds to the boil in the water with a bit of fresh parsley, and boil them until you can crush them with a fork. Drain, and get ready to mash. I have a little mashing ritual which goes like this:

pour a splash of milk in with the spuds and put it back on the hob until the milk is hot, then throw in a few knobs of butter, a teaspoon of mustard (Colemans English – nothing else will do!) and some torn (not chopped) fresh parsley. Mix this together with a fork – then get mashing.

I use a metal masher, somehow I don’t feel comfortable with plastic ones, they lack a certain… weight… Anyhow, the consistency of the mash is a personal thing, I like mine fairly solid, but ready to yield to the gravy… ah yes – the gravy

When the sausages have had their 4 hours or so on the hob, and the shallots look ready to disintegrate, I throw in a healthy slosh of marsala, and stir round the pan with a wooden spoon to mix in all the sticky bits. It’ll take a minute or so for the boozy whiff of the marsala to pass, and then the gravy is ready. No cornflour here, this is not wetherspoons.

My mash mountain looks too big, and I dither about whether I should put some aside for bubble and squeak. To hell with it, I have the lot, four sausages on top, and that sweet gravy…
Black sheep ale to accompany. Well I wouldn’t want to spoil my bangers and mash by drinking wine with it…