An EnGLiSh SuPPeR

It is a long weekend in Malaysia with the celebrations of Labour or Workers' Day on Sunday. After a long day traipsing around the malls to shop in the sales, we settled for an old favourite of ours, Bangers and Mash for dinner.

Getting the right kind of sausages for us is always a major headache in KL. Most places sell the processed meat kind while few places only make fresh sausages from minced meat. After scouting around, we narrowed it down to two places which do decent sausages; Cold Storage in Great Eastern Mall, Ampang and Mr. Ho's Fine Foods in Bangsar Shopping Centre. As we were in KL on Sunday, we made a trip to Great Eastern Mall to check the sausages. To our dissapointment, they have stopped making them fresh and were taking them for an external supplier. In the end, we had to settle for Ayamas Premium Sausages which was the next best alternative as we did not want to make a detour to Bangsar.

I regularly use the recipe from Jamie Oliver's latest cook book, Jamie's Dinners which I adapt accordingly to whatever sausages I can get my hands on. His recipe actually calls for long Cumberland Sausages which we do not have in Malaysia(the closest I can think of is footlong sausages!) and roasting them with herbs and garlic in an oven. If I use the sausages from Mr. Ho's, I would roast them as the herbs add a nice flavour to the sausages. However, as we could only get our hands on Ayamas Premium Sausages, I will fry them in a frying pan on slow heat to let their skin burn so it gets slightly crispy. We used Cheese flavoured ones as I love the cheese oozing out when you cut them up.

Jamie's recipe is actually for four people so I reduce the portions accordingly to fit the two of us. We use USA Russett Potatoes for the mash as that is the best potato for the job. I added full cream instead of milk since we had that in the fridge. Another variation to my mash is I will heat up the butter and cream first, then add the cooked potatoes to mix and mash. I omit the horseradish as we prefer to have it plain.

The Best Sausage and Mash with Onion Gravy

2 long rounds Cumberland Sausages
2 cloves of garlic, finely sliced
Bunch of fresh sage, leaves picked
Wooden skewers
Bunch of fresh rosemary, leaves picked
Olive oil to drizzle
2 kg peeled potatoes
300 ml milk
70g butter, plus a knob for the gravy
6 tbsp horseradish, either freshly grated, jarred or even creamed
4 red onions, cut in half and finely sliced
5 tbsp cheap balsamic vinegar
2 beef or chicken OXO cubes

Preheat your oven to 200C/fan 180C/gas 6. Roll your sausages in a Catherine wheel, pushing in the sliced garlic and sage as you roll it up - this will give you terrific flavour. Secure with a couple of skewers or some sharp rosemary stalks. Drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with rosemary and place on an oiled baking tray or ovenproof pan. Cook for 20 minutes until crisp and golden.

While your wheel is roasting, chop your potatoes into small dice and boil in salted water until cooked, then drain them well. Mash the potatoes until smooth, adding the milk, butter and horseradish. Season well to taste and keep warm with a lid on, on the back of the stove.

Making the gravy is simple: fry the onions for about 10 minutes with a lid on until soft. Then take the lid off, turn and the heat up and as soon as the onions brown, chuck in the vinegar and boil it down untl it has almost dissapeared. Turn the heat back down and add a nice knob of butter, crumble in the stock cubes and some water and stir well. Let everything simmer to a nice gravy consistency. To serve, dollop some potatoes on the plate, chop up the sausage and pour over the gravy.



There you have it, like Jamie says, this is proper comfort food. Heaven on a plate when you are feeling super depressed and the rain is pouring down in a storm like last night.