Category: sausages

Categories
carrots chicken food sausages

christmas dinner pie

A Christmas dinner in a pie! What a novel idea. After seeing one on the shelves from Pukka Pies I thought it was worth looking into.

Not content with dominating the Christmas music charts, YouTube channel LadBaby have come out with a pie:

Pukka Pies have been around for ages so it sort of makes sense that these would be the guys to come out with such a pie. This is a fairly straightforward idea so I thought I would give it a go at making at home.

One downside of making the pie yourself is the charity missing out. Sales of the pie give a 10p donation to the Trussell Trust, an organisation that works with food banks in the UK. If you’re able, why not consider a donation by following the link or scanning the QR code?

Donate to the Trussell Trust

My version of the pie has chicken, carrots, stuffing, sausages and bacon, covered in gravy and wrapped in a flaky pastry. You could easily swap out ingredients as you prefer. Serve with mash and veg with extra gravy for a satisfying treat.

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christmas dinner pie

A simple and homely pie with all your favourites
Course Main Course
Cuisine British
Keyword pukka pie
Prep Time 30 minutes
Cook Time 30 minutes
Resting time 30 minutes
Total Time 1 hour 30 minutes
Servings 4 pies

Equipment

  • muffin tin or pie dish

Ingredients

For the pastry:

  • 250 g butter refrigerated
  • 300 g flour

For the filling:

  • 1 chicken breast diced
  • 1 carrot large, peeled and diced
  • 2 chipolata sausages skinned
  • 65 g bacon diced, about 2 rashers
  • 80 g sage and onion stuffing made as per packet instructions, formed into small balls
  • pinch dried sage
  • 400 ml chicken stock
  • 1 teaspoon cornflour

Instructions

For the pastry:

  • Grate the butter and mix with the flour. Add a pinch of salt and add small amounts of ice cold water until it comes together and clean away from the bowl (this will not be much, maybe 20-50ml). Wrap in clingfilm and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes before using.

For the filling:

  • Bake the stuffing balls according to the packet instructions. You can cook the rest of the filling while they bake.
  • Cook the carrots until tender - I put them in the microwave with a splash of water in a covered dish for 4 minutes.
  • Get a pan over a medium heat and add a splash of oil. Add the bacon and fry for a couple of minutes. Squeeze the sausages into 4 pieces each and add to the pan along with the chicken. Stir fry for a couple of minutes, colouring on all sides.
  • Add the sage and stock to the pan, followed by the cooked carrots. Bring to the boil. Mix the cornflour with a teaspoon of water and then stir thoroughly into the pie filling. Once blended remove from the heat and allow to cool slightly.
  • Preheat the oven to 200°C. Roll out the pastry on a floured surface to 3mm thick. Cut out circles and line into a greased muffin tin. Add the pie filling and top with another pastry circle. Brush with beaten egg and bake for 30-35 minutes until puffed up and golden.

Video

Notes

Can easily be frozen at any stage. Even the pie filling itself can be frozen separately for making another day.
Categories
black pudding pastry sausages

black pudding sausage rolls

I’m a huge fan of black pudding. I rarely have it but when I do I revel in the spiced, oaty meaty flavour. Lightly crisp from the grill, with a slick of brown sauce it’s perfection.

Clonakilty sent some of their product to try. Their bacon was thin cut and full of flavour. Their sausages were plump and juicy. The black pudding was really good, but different to what I’d had before. Scanning the packaging I realised what; their black pudding is beef. Pretty sure I’d only ever had pork before. What a rich, meaty taste it gives.

Picture courtesy of Clonakilty

How better to show them off than putting them into a sausage roll. Black pudding by itself could be pretty heavy going, so I’ve mixed it with regular pork sausagemeat to calm it down. The addition of a sweet-sharp onion chutney is a great way to balance out the flavours.

I used Clonakilty Ispini sausages, but you could use pork chipolatas if you can’t get these.

Cut them large or small as required to suit your party. I made mine on the large side to go in lunchboxes, but you could make yours more dainty to serve as a canape. Serve large or small, the choice is yours!

Thanks to Clonakilty for the samples.

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black pudding sausage rolls

Course Snack
Prep Time 10 minutes
Cook Time 25 minutes
Total Time 35 minutes
Servings 6 people
Author Gary @ BigSpud

Ingredients

  • 400 g pork sausages I used Clonakilty Ispini
  • 200 g black pudding I used Clonakilty beef black pudding
  • 2 tablespoons red onion chutney
  • 1 roll puff pastry (320g)
  • 1 egg beaten

Instructions

  • Preheat the oven to 200C.
  • Roll out your puff pastry sheet and cut to size. Arrange on baking paper on a metal baking sheet. Brush the pastry evenly with chutney.
  • Squeeze the sausagemeat out of it's skins into a bowl. Roughly chop the black pudding and mix with the sausage. Divide into your pastry, roll over and seal. Slash the tops to allow steam to escape and brush with egg wash. Bake for 20 - 25 minutes, until the pastry is risen and golden brown.
Categories
food sausages

red sauce v brown sauce: we decide a winner

…Among others. It’s a classic battle for the ages. Kennedy v Nixon. Ali v Frazier. Chips or mash. But red sauce v brown sauce is far more important than any of those! Whether you prefer sweet tomato ketchup or tangy brown sauce, it’s very rare to change your mind. You have one that you settle on for life!

I’ve been inspired by Danny Baker’s sublime sausage sandwich game, where members of the public attempt to predict a celebrity’s taste in condiment. The tension rises as the music hums and we try to second-guess whether someone prefers red sauce, brown sauce or no sauce at all on their sausage sandwich. “A sandwich is brought to you, not a gourmet one cut within a thou’ of an inch, but greasy fat bangers in two slices of Mother’s Pride.”

Results are always surprising, with Danny often remarking that geography doesn’t play into it. It doesn’t play along gender lines either. In more official circles, a YouGov poll in 2011 chickened out and claimed that it was equally loved.

I wanted a more definitive answer so sought out the wisdom of the masses.

I had to ask the nation, what do you have on a delicious sausage sandwich?

I had some emphatic replies:

https://twitter.com/cardiffbites/status/875011865516142592

Naturally my crowd attract some gourmet responses. But what won overall?

The results are in!

It’s a landslide. Brown sauce is the winner!

There you have it. Brown sauce is the nation’s favourite!

When it comes to brown sauce, I always have HP Sauce in my cupboard. It’s that sweet, savoury tanginess that is such a great foil to soft, juicy sausages.

HP Brown Sauce quick facts!

  • HP Sauce is the UK’s no. 1 brown sauce, with 28 million bottles being consumed every year
  • HP sauce, the original brown sauce which has been around since 1899
  • The ingredients are combined to a closely-guarded secret recipe
  • The name “HP” comes from the rumour that the sauce was being sold in the Houses of Parliament. This is also why the Houses of Parliament appear on the bottle
  • For more information click here.

This post is sponsored by HP, but I promise you the survey results are legit! I asked Facebook fans of Big Spud, my followers on Twitter and a Google Survey that asks random people in the UK all around the Internet. 

Categories
chorizo food pizza sausages

chorizo pan pizza

You can never have enough pizza recipes. Generally speaking I like a thin crust pizza, but this chorizo pan pizza is deep and chewy, and really satisfying.

But best of all it’s no effort at all. No kneading required! No, not a bit! Just bring the ingredients together, cover and leave. The trade-off is you need to give it time to do it’s magic… at least 8 hours, but up to 24. This makes it perfect to get going the night before or first thing in the morning before going out. Combine the ingredients loosely (a bit like a scone recipe), cover well with film and leave it be for a few hours. Pour it out into a pan, leave it again and you’re ready to bake. It couldn’t be simpler.

Ingredients combined and left to do it’s thing

Dough left for 10 hours to prove

Poured into pan and left for another two hours

The technique is lifted from J. Kenji Lopez-Alt’s recipe. I highly recommend you take a read of his methodology.

Deep pizzas need bold flavours to work with the soft, airy dough. One tip from the recipe I really like is grated parmesan added at the last minute after being taken out of the oven. Fresh parmesan has an acidic twang I really like to contrast with richer cheese flavours. Some punchy chorizo sausage and sweet red onion help make this a real feast.

And if you like this recipe, Kenji’s book comes highly recommended (I named it cookbook of the year in 2015!).

So for a no-fuss recipe combine it all in the morning, and get home and cook up some pizza.

 

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chorizo pan pizza

Course Main Dish
Cuisine American
Servings 2 pizzas
Author Gary @ BigSpud

Ingredients

  • 400 g strong bread flour
  • 10 g sea salt
  • 7 g yeast
  • 275 g water
  • 8 g olive oil
  • tomato sauce
  • toppings as desired I used sliced chorizo sausage and red onion

Instructions

  • In a large bowl, combine flour, salt, yeast, water, and oil in a large bowl. Mix with your hands until no dry flour remains. Cover with cling film and leave for at least 8 hours to rise.
  • Pour oil into two pans and divide the dough between them. Using the flat of your hand push out into the edges of the pan as best you can. Cover with cling film and leave for a further two hours.
  • Preheat the oven to 200C. Lift the dough up to let air bubbles escape. Top with tomato sauce, cheese and toppings as required and bake for 15 minutes or until the bottom is completely crisp.
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