Tonight’s recipe

Sausage-stuffed apples with bread and cider

Serves 3-4 Ingredients

4 medium apples, nothing too sweet (I used Braeburns) 5 sausages, their skins removed (I used herby Lincolnshires)

2 red onions, cut into wedges 500ml cider

6-8 large sage leaves

4 tsp butter

2 thick slices of bread, something sturdy like sourdough or a thick-cut rye

Method

 Preheat the oven to 210C/gas 6.

Slice a little off the bottom of each apple to give it a flat surface to stand upright. Scoop the core and seeds out. I used a peeler with a pointy end, but you could use a teaspoon or corer. Don’t go all the way through to the bottom. You want to scoop out a kind of cavern to be filled with sausage meat.

Push the sausage meat into each apple, allowing it to overflow a bit. Put the apples in a cast iron pan or a roasting tin. Scatter the onions around them, season with salt and pepper.

Pour the cider into the pan or tin, and add the sage. Then top each apple with a little butter. Put in the oven and cook for 25 minutes or until you can easily pierce the apples with a knife. Tear the bread and add it to the pan, tucking it among the apples so some of the bread is submerged in the cider, some poking out. Cook for another 15 minutes.

When ready, the apples should be on the verge of collapsing, the sausage meat browned on top, the bread golden, onions soft and the cider reduced a little and bubbling.

You could serve it just as it is, or remove the apples and bread, and finish the sauce with cream and mustard. Mash would be a great addition, or you could even serve this as a side with a roast chicken.