Cumberland sausage with apples & onions
There is nothing more comfortingly old-fashioned than sausages with apples and onions. This is what my maternal grandmother, who otherwise had an enthusiasm for what my grandfather disparagingly referred to as Landscape Cookery, would give to us when, exhausted by her grandchildren, she hadn’t the energy for anything fancier. I adore the plump whorls of pepperyspiced Cumberland sausage, but you can just as easily substitute 12 good-quality butcher’s sausages. It is not advisable to make ahead/store.
SERVES 4-6 PREP 15 mins COOK 1 hr EASY
3 tbsp olive oil
2 tsp yellow mustard seeds
1 tsp dried thyme
2 red onions (about 300g), peeled, halved, then each half cut into 6 wedges
4 Gala apples, quartered, cored, then each quarter halved lengthways
1 tsp sea salt flakes
4 Cumberland sausage rings (250g each)
1 Heat oven to 200C/180C fan/gas 6. Put the oil, mustard seeds and thyme in a large, shallow roasting tin, add the onion and apple pieces, sprinkle the salt over and give everything a good turn to coat well.
2 Push some of the spiced onions and apples aside to create space for the sausage rings to sit on the bottom of the tin. Sit the sausage rings in the spaces allocated, then turn them so that they’re lightly oiled on both sides.
3 Cook in the oven for 50-60 mins – though start checking at 45 – until the sausages are cooked through and the onions and apples are soft and caramelising at the edges.
GOOD TO KNOW fibre • 1 of 5-a-day
PER SERVING (6) 652 kcals • fat 50g • saturates 16g • carbs 26g • sugars 15g • fibre 7g • protein 21g • salt 2.8g