Category: sausages

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potatoes product review sausages

sausages wrapped in potato spaghetti

I’m about two years late but I’m a convert to the spiralize bandwagon. I mentioned recently how I’ve got into spiralizing a courgette or carrot and then microwaving with salmon or chicken for a quick lunch. Also mixing courgetti with sweetcorn and pesto for a superfast dinner.

I’ve been roadtesting the Savisto spiralizer:

Which is a neat entry in the spiralizing market. It has three blades, for ribbons, thick spirals and thin spirals – pretty much all you’ll need. I’ve tested it on beetroot, carrot, apple and as you can see from this recipe, potato. It does a great job with all of them. It features four suction feet so it sticks firm to your countertop, and has darned sharp prongs to hold that veg in place. Due to those features it has no problem waffling through even really tough veg. You can watch the spirals cascade down to the counter, which puts me in mind of those old Play-Doh sets.

It’s kind of like potato murder #spiralized

A photo posted by Gary Fenn (@thebigspud) on

The whole thing pleasingly gets slung in the dishwasher for cleaning. If it has a downside, it’s storage. The blades slide nicely into the under compartment, but the whole thing has sticky-out bits that make it a bit of a pain to store. I can’t help thinking of Lakeland’s tremendous model which has storage designed up front. Other than that it’s a good, sturdy model that does the job.

So of course when I get on board the trendy, healthy craze what do I do? Deep fry it. Take a raw sausage, wrap it in potato and get frying! Serve with a spicy ketchup and it’d make a fun item at a buffet. I’ve listed the recipe for 4 sausages which takes about 1 potato, so it scales up really nicely.

What are your spiralizing favourites?

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sausages wrapped in potato spaghetti

Course Snack
Prep Time 5 minutes
Cook Time 6 minutes
Total Time 11 minutes
Servings 4 sausages
Author Gary @ BigSpud

Ingredients

  • 4 sausages
  • 1 baking potato e.g. Maris Piper, King Edward. Something starchy

Instructions

  • Preheat your fryer to 170C.
  • Spiralize the potato. You need to do this just before frying as the potato will start to oxidize and blacken in the air. Wrap the sausages as tightly with potato as you can.
  • Deep fry for six minutes to ensure the sausages are cooked through. Drain on kitchen roll and serve on skewers.
Categories
pasta sausages tomato

sausage pappardelle pasta

Despite working in the capital every day, I don’t spend enough time being a tourist around London. One spare Sunday we tramped off as a family to do just that. We took in the Princess Diana memorial gardens, having fun on the pirate ship. We paddled around the nearby fountain, which was mountains of fun. We then plodded along Constitution Hill, marvelled at how shiny the statue of Eros was, and did some ooh-ahh selfies in front of Buckingham Palace (she was in, by the way).

After all that stamping about, we decided to treat ourselves to dinner out. A short hop away was Jamie’s Italian Piccadilly. Now I haven’t set foot in a Jamie’s Italian in quite a while so I thought it was worth a return visit. We all asked for pasta dishes and were served up in double-quick time. There was a lovely pesto gnocchi with purple potatoes, a heavenly carbonara and rich sausage pappardelle. I enjoyed it so much, I set to making my own version.

 

The sausages make or break this one – buy the best you can get hold of. I had some lovely herby Toulouse (not very Italian I grant you) but anything spiked with lots of flavours would be perfect here. I like those ‘Italian style’ sausages you can get from delis, punched up with fennel and rosemary which I’ve tried to ape here. I also chose to make my own pasta because I was in the mood for it having just watching Gennaro knock up a batch but buying your own would be no problem. It’s a rich and delicious lip-smacking pasta dish.

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sausage pappardelle pasta

Author Gary @ BigSpud

Ingredients

  • 2 stalks celery finely chopped
  • 6 - 8 good quality sausages
  • 1 teaspoon fennel seeds
  • 1 leaves large sprig of rosemary picked and finely chopped
  • 400 g passata
  • 300 g pappardelle

Instructions

  • Preheat your oven to 140C. Get a large pan over a medium heat and add a splash of oil.
  • Add the celery and fennel seeds to the oil and fry for 3 minutes until the fennel is fragrant and the celery has softened.
  • While the celery cooks, skin the sausages and crumble the meat into tiny bits. Turn up the heat under the pan and add the sausage. Cook the sausage for a minute or two and then add the passata, plus fill the same container with water and add that to the pan too. Cover and put in the oven for an hour.
  • When the pasta sauce is ready, cook your pasta according to the packet instructions, drain and fold through the sauce before serving. Grate some parmesan over the top and enjoy with garlic bread.

As fluke would have it, Kavey also visited Jamie’s Italian recently!

Categories
burger cranberry sausages turkey

leftover turkey burgers with shredded sprouts and cranberry relish

Thinking about  all the leftover turkey you’re going to have real soon? Time to bookmark some ideas – try my leftover turkey burgers recipe.

Leftovers are (almost) my favourite bit – that doorstop turkey sandwich is a great thing. But what about if you fancy something a little different?

A burger can be a really obvious choice with leftover turkey from Christmas or Thanksgiving but there’s a bunch of twists in this recipe to lift it over the usual. There’s often nuts hanging around at Christmas time, so a handful will give these a bit of texture. Plus there’s a sneaky sausage centre that is not only tasty but keeps it moist.

Want to max out those leftovers? Top it with sauteed shredded Brussels Sprouts. Sweet and crunchy, these poor little things get cast aside too often. They really make it. Add cranberry sauce for the winning condiment.

Now I don’t usually care for a brioche bun in a regular beef burger, I think it’s too soft and slippery. But in a turkey burger the butteriness really helps add moisture.

So try these leftover turkey burgers and let me know what you think – or do you have a gold-plated recipe that works for you every time?

This recipe was commissioned by Sainsbury’s.

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leftover turkey burgers with shredded sprouts and cranberry relish

Author Gary @ BigSpud

Ingredients

  • 1 small onion diced
  • 200 g leftover turkey shredded
  • 1 tablespoon chopped nuts optional. I use pistachios
  • 1 teaspoon dried sage
  • 1 egg beaten
  • 100 g sausagemeat (or 4 sausages skinned)
  • 100 g Brussels Sprouts raw
  • 1/4 nutmeg grated
  • 4 tablespoons cranberry sauce
  • 25 g butter melted
  • 4 brioche buns
  • Salad to serve

Instructions

  • Fry the onion gently in a saucepan until soft. Scrape out on to a plate until cooled.
  • While the onion cools, shred the turkey in a food processor. Combine the turkey with the nuts, sage, onion and egg. Shape into 4 burgers and pop in the fridge for 10 minutes to firm up. Shred the Brussels in the food processor.
  • Take a 5cm circular cutter and remove the centre section of each patty. Replace this with sausagemeat (you can cook this turkey offcut ) Wipe out your frying pan from early and put over a high heat. Fry the burgers for 4 minutes each side, turning frequently until cooked through. Pop into a 100C oven while you cook the sprouts.
  • Fry the spouts for 3 minutes, tossing regularly, until starting to colour. Add the nutmeg and season to taste.
  • Toast the buns on the cut side and brush with melted butter. Add the turkey burger, a dollop of cranberry and finally the Brussels Sprouts. Serve with salad.

Looking for more leftovers recipes?

Jo’s mincemeat flapjacks

Emily’s turkey slice

Mince pie ice cream

Nazima’s turkey and cranberry spring roll

Jen’s chicken, ham and pecan crumble

Categories
carrots celery food red onion sage sausages squash

simply sausage ragu

Here’s a dish perfect for this time of year, but still doesn’t feel like stodge-o-rama thanks to the amount of veg involved. The star ingredient is the sausage, a meaty banger from Simply Sausages. I used their No.1 Recipe Smithfield Original, a relatively unadorned sausage which gives the pork plenty of space for flavour. Mrs. Spud and I thought it was quite simply the best sausage we’ve ever eaten.

The technique is inspired by a similar recipe from Jamie’s 15-Minute Meals. Essentially process a whole bunch of root veg  and fry with bacon and tomatoes as a sauce base! It’s a recipe with lots of room to maneuver, by just swapping the veg in and out you get a different taste each time. And even if you take it easy it should be 20 mins work, tops.

Thanks to Amanda from ZPR for the sausages!

Simply sausage ragu (serves 4):

6 No.1 Recipe Simply Sausages

2 rashers of bacon

2 carrots, trimmed and peeled

1 stick of celery, trimmed

Bunch of sage

1 red onion, peeled

½ butternut squash

250g penne

2 cloves garlic

1 tin of tomatoes

1 Knorr Rich Beef Stock Pot

Good-quality balsamic vinegar

  1. Preheat the grill on medium, get a large pan of salted water on to boil and put a large frying pan over a medium-high heat. Get your food processor ready too.
  2. Pop the sausages under the grill and cook for 10 – 15 minutes, turning regularly.
  3. In the food processor whizz up the bacon and add to the pan. While that fries add the carrots, celery, sage and onion to the food processor, whizz that up and add that to the pan. Finally blitz the squash and add that to the same pan. Add some salt and pepper. Toss the veg regularly.
  4. While that cooks in the pan, add the pasta to the water and cook according to the packet instructions.
  5. Crush the garlic into the veg pan, and after a minute or so more’s cooking, add the tin of tomatoes. Half fill the tin with water and add to the pan along with the stock pot. Stir well. If it’s looking a little dry add some of the pasta cooking water to loosen it.
  6. When the sausages are cooked cut into slices, drain the pasta and toss both through the veg. Check for seasoning and serve, dressing with balsamic vinegar.
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