“As far as I’m concerned, the sausage is just about man’s noblest creation. It is a wonder (or should be), a perfect piece of design, elegant and economical…Sausages are classless, as acceptable on the table of the royal family as on that of the Royle family. Is there anyone who does not smile at the sight of a sausage? Who’s mouth does not salivate just a bit at the thought of that first bite?”

So in honour of the banger and British Sausage Week, here’s a recipe for a warming and tasty sausage casserole. It’s a bit of a French remix of a Delia recipe, and is the perfect dish for this time of year.

Ingredients

6 good quality Toulouse sausages

4 cloves of garlic, roughly chopped

150 g lardons

15 shallots, peeled

1 large carrot, peeled and chopped

250 g chestnut mushrooms

500 ml French red wine

Bay leaves x 2

1 large red chili

Sprig of rosemary and thyme, finely chopped

1 tablespoon redcurrant jelly

1 heaped teaspoon of flour, dijon mustard and butter (to make a roux)

Ground black pepper

Method

Put some olive oil in a heavy bottomed pan and brown off the sausages, being careful not to puncture their skin. Once you’ve done this, remove them from the pan, set aside, and then add the lardons. Fry them off for a minute or so before adding the garlic, shallots and chopped carrot. After a couple of minutes add the mushrooms, chili and herbs to the pan and sweat off for 5 minutes or so.

Next, add the red wine and bring up to a gentle simmer, before adding the redcurrant jelly. Return the sausages to the pan, turn the heat down and put a lid on. Simmer for around half an hour. After 30 minutes, take off the lid and simmer for another 10 or 15 minutes or so to reduce some of the cooking liquid.

While the casserole is reducing, make the roux by mixing the flour, mustard and butter together. Once you’ve got a good paste together, add it to the casserole and whisk in. The roux will thicken the sauce as well as adding a bit of flavour, and as soon as it’s dissolved, you’re ready to chow.

Eat with a big, fluffy pile of mash. That’s an order.

Back to New York, if only briefly, for a quick bit about what might be my favourite place to eat breakfast in the World. Serious claim I know, but Williamsburgh’s Egg is amazing. So amazing in fact that the New York visit prior to this one I think we had breakfast there 3 times out of the 5 days we were there. We only managed twice this time, but if I lived in the neighborhood I’d have to stop myself eating here every bloody day of the week.

Egg is a really unassuming place tucked on a little side road off Bedford Avenue in Williamsburgh. It’s light years away from the city’s brash diners (that I also love) and has a really relaxed almost ‘hippyish’ atmosphere. The owners have their own little farm on the outskirts of New York state, which supplies as much produce to the restaurant as possible. I’m not 100% sure how long it’s been open, but probably around 2 years. It’s open all day, serving breakfast / brunch until the evening when the menu becomes a bit more substantial. I’ve not eaten there in the evening, but I’ve heard it’s good.

My absolute favourite thing on the menu is a dish called ‘Eggs Rothko’. I’m not sure if it’s named after Mark Rothko, but it’s a whole lot tastier than his paintings (IMHO). At the heart of the dish is a kind of remix of eggy bread. A thick slice of toasted brioche with a hole cut in the middle is popped in a frying pan, and then an egg is fried in the hole. They then top the bread with a grated, tangy mature cheddar and slide it under a grill until the cheese bubbles. I know it sounds pretty insane, but when you slice open the bread and the yoke of the egg oozes out, you know you’re in the presence of breakfast greatness.

They serve it with your choice of meat or seasonal greens. I always opt for the sausage, which is a little different to the sausages you get with a fry up in the UK. They are basically little sausage meat patties which are flavoured with chili and fennel. Spicy and seriously tasty, and they work really well with the eggy bread.

I wish I was there now.

To cut a long story short, there’s a guy called Doug who makes the most amazing speciality hot dogs that come in a bewildering and surprising array of flavours. And when I say bewildering, I mean it. Pork, duck, lamb, beef, weisswurst, bratwurst, veal, rattlesnake, vegetarian…I could go on. Doug’s place is pretty much in the middle of nowhere, so if you’re an un-escorted newbie, you can pretty much forget about finding it (we were lucky enough to have a couple of willing guides). But, despite the location, the place is RAMMED every day. It’s open between 11am and 4pm, and there’s a queue pretty much from opening to closing.

Photo: MSN

When we got there at about a quarter to twelve, there were already a lot of people waiting. It took us about an hour to make it through the doors  and get a look at the wall mounted menu and specials, but when we did I nearly exploded with excitement. After much debate, my girlfriend and I decided to get 4 to share between us. We went for a duck and fois gras, a merguez and goats cheese, veal and pork weisswurst, and a classic Chicago dog (all pictured).

First up the duck. Now I was fully expecting this to be a gimmick, but I could’nt have been further from the mark. You could taste everything. The duck and fois gras in the sausage, the fois gras mousse on top, and the insane truffle and garlic mayo. Every bite was ridiculous. Too sickly to nail another, but amazing.

Next up the weisswurst. Again a taste sensation. The tangy apple and pork meat in the sausage was well seasoned and wrapped in this creamy mustard and parsley sauce. Then a nice bit of tangy, peppery horseradish cheese finished it off with style.

The traditional Chicago dog was probably the least impressive of the four, but still damn tasty. Your classic frank dog accompanied with fried onions, mustard, tomato, a slab of pickle and a kind of atomic green relish. When in Rome and all that.

Finally the merguez. One of my favourite sausages of all time. This baby came served up with a kind of smokey chipotle sauce that was a cross between a mayo and a gravy , and was topped with this amazingly fluffy and light goats cheese. Again you could taste all the flavours, and the cheese cooled down the chili kick of the sausage and sauce. Phenomenal.

It’s not hard to see why people get evangelical about Hot Doug’s. It’s one of those proper institutions that specialise in one thing, and nails it time after time. It’s also fun and completely unpretentious. In the UK a place like Doug’s would probably fall out of favour as soon as it ceased to be fashionable, which is a great shame as I feel England’s restaurant scene would be a lot richer if there were more of the local neighborhood heroes of the kind I’ve written about in the past few posts.

I’ve always liked the idea of starting a local sausage restaurant, maybe there’s a gap in the market?