Bangers and Mash

Winter time is all about comfort food and keeping the cold chill at bay and what could be more comforting than a steaming hot plate of bangers and mash with lashings of onion gravy, on a cold, dark winters evening. The sausages should ideally be of a good quality, preferably from a decent, local butcher, but even on a stretched budget you can enjoy this great dish with cheaper supermarket alternatives.

We prefer to use a good quality Lincolnshire sausage which we oven bake for 45 minutes to give a lovely gooey skin that melts in the mouth. For the mash we don’t just use the plain old potato, we add sweet potato, parsnip and turnip to give a lovely variety of flavours, colours and textures, and also add a good knob of butter whilst mashing for some extra richness and smoothness. A couple of finely chopped chillies also add some extra zing to your mash if chilli is your thing.

For the onion gravy add a couple of chopped onions to a frying pan, fry until browning nicely and turning sticky and then add a good quality beef stock, simmer the mix for 20 minutes until it starts to thicken nicely. Finally serve it all together on a hot plate piling the sausages on top of the lovely creamy mash then smothering them in your great onion gravy.

Proper, comfort food for these darker evenings and a great, hearty meal for any budget. Simple, honest cooking that anyone can achieve.