Sausages and Mash with Onion Gravy

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •Heavy-bottomed frying pan or skillet for sausages
• •Wide, heavy saucepan for the onion gravy
• •Large saucepan for the potatoes
• •Potato masher or ricer

Instructions

1. 1

   Start the onion gravy

   This is the part that takes the longest and matters the most, so it goes first. Melt the butter with the oil in a heavy pan over a medium heat. When the butter foams, add all the sliced onions and a good pinch of salt. Stir them through the fat, then drop the heat to low. Cook the onions gently, stirring now and then, for a good thirty minutes. You're not in a hurry. They'll go from sharp and white to soft and translucent, and then on to a deep, sticky, golden amber that smells sweet and savoury at once. If they start to catch on the bottom, add a splash of water and scrape it up. That caramelised residue is flavour. Don't waste it.

   Four onions will seem like an absurd amount of onion. It isn't. They cook down to a fraction of their raw volume, and a thin gravy with sparse onions is a sad thing. Be generous.
2. 2

   Cook the sausages

   While the onions are doing their slow, quiet work, get the sausages on. Put them in a cold pan (not a hot one, this matters) and set it over a medium-low heat. Let them cook slowly, turning them every few minutes, for about twenty-five minutes. The skins should go deep golden all over, tight and glossy, with a few blistered patches. A sausage cooked gently stays juicy inside. A sausage cooked fast over high heat splits, spits, and dries out. You've seen it happen. We all have.

   Buy the best sausages you can find. A proper butcher's sausage with a high meat content will taste like pork. A cheap one will taste of bread and seasoning. This is a dish of three things. Each one needs to be good.
3. 3

   Boil and mash the potatoes

   Put the potatoes in a large pan of cold, well-salted water. Bring to the boil, then simmer for fifteen to twenty minutes until they yield completely to a knife. No resistance at all. Drain them well and let them sit in the colander for a couple of minutes so the steam drives off the excess water. Return them to the warm pan and mash. Not with a food processor, not with a stick blender. A masher or a ricer. Add the butter first, in pieces, and beat it in. Then the warm milk, a splash at a time, until the mash is smooth and loose enough to fall slowly from a spoon. Season generously. Mash without enough salt is just hot potato.

   Floury potatoes are not negotiable here. Maris Piper or King Edward. Waxy potatoes make a gluey, dense mash that no amount of butter can rescue. The variety matters.
4. 4

   Finish the gravy

   When the onions are deeply golden and sweet, sprinkle over the flour and stir it in for a minute. Pour in a splash of wine or port if you've got a bottle open. Let it sizzle and reduce to almost nothing. Add the Worcestershire sauce and the stock, stir well, and bring to a steady simmer. Let it cook for ten minutes or so, until it thickens to the consistency of double cream poured from a jug: not thin, not gloopy, but with some body. Stir in the mustard. Taste. It should be rich, savoury, slightly sweet from the onions, with a background warmth from the mustard. If it needs more salt or a touch more Worcestershire, trust your instincts.

5. 5

   Serve generously

   Pile the mash onto warm plates. Not a neat quenelle, not a careful swipe. Just a generous mound, pressed slightly with the back of a spoon to make a cradle. Lean the sausages against the mash, two per person, and pour the onion gravy over the lot. Be generous with it. The gravy should pool around the base and soak into the edges of the mash. Put the plate in front of someone. Watch their shoulders drop. That's the whole point.

Chef Tips

• •The sausages matter more than anything else on the plate. Find a butcher you trust and buy proper pork sausages with a high meat content. Cumberland, Lincolnshire, a good herbed sausage: whatever is local and well-made. The difference between a cheap sausage and a good one is the difference between something you tolerate and something you look forward to.
• •Start the sausages in a cold pan. This sounds wrong but it isn't. A cold start lets the fat render slowly and the skin tighten gradually, which gives you an even, deep colour all over without splitting. High heat and a hot pan produce burnt patches and raw spots. Patience is the only technique you need.
• •The onion gravy can be made ahead and reheated, and it only improves overnight. If you know you're having sausages on Wednesday, make the gravy on Tuesday. It thickens and deepens as it sits, and reheating it with a splash of water brings it back perfectly.
• •If you have a tin of English mustard powder in the cupboard, stir half a teaspoon into the mash along with the butter. It doesn't taste of mustard. It just wakes everything up.

Advance Preparation

• •The onion gravy can be made up to two days ahead and refrigerated. Reheat gently with a splash of stock or water to loosen.
• •The mash is best made fresh, but you can peel and chop the potatoes a few hours ahead and keep them submerged in cold water until you're ready to cook.
• •Sausages can be cooked earlier in the day and reheated in a warm oven for ten minutes, though they're always better straight from the pan.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 620g)