Mock Mash

A couple of Wednesdays ago I needed some quick comfort food to perk me up after a long day at the coal face and I elected to cook a variation on the traditional sausage and mash dish that we all know and love. The reason for this variation was that I had four sage-flavoured vegetarian sausages that needed eating.

My spirits were lifted before I started cooking the meal by the arrival in the post of Demon Records' excellent reissue of Elvis Costello's 1979 album "Armed Forces". The original album is good enough on its own with tracks like "Accidents Will Happen" " Green Shirt" "Party Girl" and "Oliver's Army" but it is made even better by the bonus tracks including essential b-sides such as "Clean Money" and "Tiny Steps". Needless to say it went straight on the CD player while I cooked.

I first peeled and thinly sliced two white potatoes, which I steamed whilst I cooked the sausages in gravy. A steamer has the advantage over a traditional pan to boil vegetables on the hob as once the water is up to temperature the vegetables you cook get done more quickly than those that are boiled.

While the potatoes were steaming I peeled and then cut an onion in half lengthways. Next I cut into long thin slices and fried it in my Le Creseut dish in a small amount of olive oil with some white pepper until the onions turned a little translucent. When this occurred I knew it was time to add the sausages and I cooked them on a medium heat until the started to turn a dark brown. Once they had changed colour in this way I made half a pint of gravy using a vegetable stock cube and half a tablespoon full of plain flour. I was able to manage the risk of getting lumpy gravy by adding boiling water to the stock and flour a little at a time and stirring it gradually so as to get a thick gravy.

After adding the gravy to the onion and sausages I let them stew on the hob for around ten minutes so as the sausages and onion absorbed a reasonable amount of the gravy. Meanwhile the potatoes were soft enough to be mashed; the trick with getting good mashed potato in my opinion is to use no milk and instead mash the potatoes with two ounces of margarine. In this way you get mashed potato that is not too sloppy and also very rich and tasteful.

The rich gravy and mash combined with the substantial sausages made this some good quality comfort food to put me in the right frame of mind for the next working day.

The new ones are the best: a classic dish is given a new twist with the vegetarian sausages.