Spice it up, or spice it down - whichever way you want your chilli , this recipe is completely double yummy.
I had best part of a bottle of Levi Roots' Reggae Reggae Sauce left over from another dish and so needed to find it a job to do. Coincidentally, we also had around 200ml of tomato Passata left over from the same dish (which we'd put in the freezer, awaiting eventualities), plus two red peppers that never got made into stuffed peppers. So, thinking about how to use the both of them immediately led me to ye olde sausage.
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| Ready for the oven |
I have discovered that, in order to render an inedible dry sausage juicy and infinitely edible, the best thing to do with it is to cook it in a sauce. Either in meatball style, or directly as a sausage, it works as well both ways. I've whinged on in the past about how sausages just don't seem to have the same "juiciness" as they used to - and lay the blame at the door of the fat police. Now I have some sympathy with the fat police (being seriously overweight myself), but not at the expense of what a food product is supposed to do. To me, a sausage runs completely out of appeal, if it doesn't burst in your mouth with flavour and preferably, it is supposed to (when a whole sausage is bitten into on the end of a fork) drip down your chin in tantalising fashion. I'd far rather eat fewer delicious sausages, than eat more dry and boring sausages.
So, having indulged in a bit more whinging about sausages (sorry about that!) I shall stop digressing.
I had a feeling that the Barbecue sauce would go very nicely with mashed potato. I will admit to being a bit of a mashed potato fan - and have paired some odd things with lovely mash, things that have made hubby recoil in alarm. However, this time, I was right and a forkful of sauce and mash was a symphony of comforting buttery potato, followed by sweetness, then savouriness, then the growing heat of the chilli. The sweetness of the sweetcorn and peas that I served alongside, just helped as a bit of a respite from the chilli - even though the effect of the chilli was much reduced by the sweet red peppers - and provided a nice crispness to the overall texture.
Incidentally, speaking of chilli, the Levi Roots' sauce is pretty effective at providing chilli heat. Well, it is made with Scotch Bonnet peppers! However, if you're not so keen on the effects of chilli, but are keen on barbecue flavours - just get an ordinary barbecue sauce. If, on the other hand, you're a fire-breathing chilli hound, then why not add a few dried chilli flakes to the mix? It's up to you.
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| Baked and ready to serve |
As a weekday meal, this one is a real winner. I'd even go so far as to buy some more Reggae Reggae sauce just so that I can make it again - and it is very definitely going on my "list of good sausage recipes". Needless to say, both hubby and son thoroughly enjoyed the meal - the brilliant Jelly potatoes make such excellent mash that even hubby sets aside his hatred of the humble potato long enough to enjoy a very different variation on Sausage & Mash.
BARBECUE SAUSAGES & RED PEPPER (serves 3)
Ingredients :
9 good pork sausages
a tbsp olive oil
a red onion, sliced thinly
a red pepper, de-seeded and sliced thinly
200ml tomato passata
200ml barbecue sauce (I used Levi Roots' Reggae Reggae sauce)
a pinch of smoked paprika
a tbsp of mushroom ketchup (or Worcestershire sauce)
a tbsp of tomato ketchup
sea salt & freshly ground black pepper.
Method :
1. Pre-heat your oven to 180degC/350degF/Gas4.
2. Taking a non-stick frying pan, heat the olive oil and cook the sausages just to colour them. You aren't looking to have them cooked through at this stage.
3. Place the sausages into an oven proof dish to keep warm.
4. Place the onion and pepper into the frying pan and cook on a medium heat until softened and just beginning to colour.
5. Add the passata, barbecue sauce, mushroom ketchup, smoked paprika, tomato ketchup and season to taste. Stir well until mixed thoroughly and heated through.
6. Pour onto the sausages, then bake in the oven for some 30-35 minutes until the sausages are cooked through.
7. Serve with buttery mashed potato, peas and sweetcorn.
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We've done a very good line in swerving various recipes for various reasons, this week. As a result, very few of those planned recipes have happened on the day they were supposed to - but this one got moved, moved again, then happened on the right day in the end.
All the "do we, don't we" was down to two things. Firstly, we kept forgetting to buy a tin of smoked paprika - even though we'd gone to the shop specifically for that very thing - and secondly, because of son & heir's social engagements.
Having finally decided to do the Wraps on the Saturday evening, this necessitated another trip to a shop to buy the darned smoked paprika and some more pork mince, as we had another mouth to feed.
This time, we managed to leave the shop with the smoked paprika! I swear, it's the onset of age. Either that, or we've got too many things to think about and keep getting distracted. Can't just be a bad memory. :: shakes head :: Oh no, definitely not. What was I talking about, again?
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| The "real thing" |
Do you know, I reckon that 99% of alternative supplies of smoked paprika could very easily be disposed of, as none of the ones I've ever tried (mostly because I couldn't get the tin of "real thing") are just house dust by comparison. The smell of the real thing is just so powerful - it promises so much by way of flavour, all of which it delivers. In fact, hubby had a camp fire in his patio fire bowl on the Saturday night (with the sleepover boys all gathered around, feeling grown up and manly as they tended the fire and talked guitars), and that fire smelled almost exactly the same as the paprika did. Maybe they were chucking teaspoonfuls on the fire - I hope not. *chuckle*
Anyway, I'm supposed to be talking about dinner, aren't I? See? Easily distracted.
Well, this meal was another very satisfactorily easy to prepare one. The original recipe came from ye good olde BBC Good Food Magazine, but they don't seem to have included it in the recipes on the website yet.
As ever (you should come to expect this now), I changed the recipe a little to fit rather better with being able to drain off the fat from the meat and because our guest hasn't got our fortitude where chilli is concerned, I used just a tablespoon of the barbecue sauce, then cooked the filling through to the finished product and decanted enough for one portion out into a separate pan. I then included the three remaining tablespoonfuls of barbecue sauce into the rest of the mix for us.
The barbecue sauce I used, was one of Levi Roots' products - his famous "Reggae Reggae" BBQ/Jerk Sauce. I've not used this before and blimey but it's good! To say it is frisky is an understatement - our poor guest was even a little over-challenged by the one tablespoonful in his wraps. We are all great chilli hounds, so the friskiness of the sauce was very welcome for us.
I also used Tarantella tomato passata, which is just streets ahead of other passatas for flavour (in my opinion). I know I've rattled on about Tarantella products before, so I won't bore you again now - but if you can find them, try them.
These wraps don't quite measure up to "The best Enchiladas evar!", but I can tell you, it was a close run thing. It was interesting to have a wrap filling made with pork mince - which naturally goes so well with the spices, tomato and barbecue sauce. I don't doubt it would have been nice made with any kind of mince (turkey comes to mind, for economy), but the pork mince gave it a particular texture that invited you to "get your teeth into it" in a most satisfying way.
If like our guest, you aren't so good with chillies, then I suggest you get a mild barbecue sauce, as there isn't much spicy heat involved other than that. However, if you're a chilli hound - definitely go with the Reggae Reggae sauce, you won't regret it!
SMOKY PORK & BEAN WRAPS (makes 8-10 wraps or 8 wraps and 2 lunches!)
Ingredients :
750g pack of pork mince
1 tsp vegetable oil
1 red onion, chopped
2 tsp smoked paprika
2 tsp ground cumin
400ml passata
5-6 tbsp barbecue sauce
400g red kidney beans, drained and rinsed
small bunch of coriander, chopped
8 corn wraps.
Method :
1. Dry fry the mince in a large frying pan or wok, until all the meat has changed colour and the fat has rendered out. Remove the meat with a slotted spoon and keep it warm. Drain away the fat and discard.
2. Add the oil and the onion and cook over a medium heat until softened but not browned.
3. Sprinkle over the spices and stir well, cooking for one minute more.
4. Add the passata and barbecue sauce along with 4 tablespoonfuls of water. Add the minced meat back to the pan along with the beans and some seasoning and stir until thoroughly mixed.
5. Allow the mixture to simmer and reduce, until the sauce is clinging to the meat and not pooling around the meat. You will need to stir at regular intervals, to prevent the mixture catching on the bottom of the pan and burning.
6. At the last minute, stir in the coriander and serve by taking a warmed wrap, then placing on some shredded lettuce, then some soured cream and enough of the meat filling that the wrap will comfortably hold. Roll it up, put it on a plate along with some tomato salsa and some potato wedges. Yum!
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