Apple Sausage Roast

  • Posted by Ruby

I’m thinking of calling this ‘Winter’s Last Hurrah’. The weather here in the middle of England looks like spring (and we’re thankful for that, believe me) but it still very much feels like winter. As much as the sunshine makes me look forward to the season of salads and BBQs, we’re just not quite there yet. My bones still beg for oven-cooked comfort food that warms you from the inside out.

The cry of my heart was answered by a recipe I found on the Tesco (a UK supermarket chain) iPad app, apparently from their magazine: ‘Apple and Sausage One-Pan Roast’. Easy, delicious – what more could I ask? When it came to actually cooking it, though, I did make a few changes.

Their recipe calls for maple syrup but I decided to try it with balsamic vinegar instead. I also mixed two types of mustard together (adding Dijon for a spicy bite) and used rosemary from my garden instead of sage, which hubby doesn’t really care for. I used more apples and onions and, finally, I added potatoes to the roast instead of serving them separately and mashed. Less work, and we tend to prefer potatoes you can bite to the mushy kind.

The flavours all work really well together and there is a nice contrast in textures too. I served this with a tossed green salad and (for the adults) South Africa’s Savanna Dry Cider, which is available at Tesco in the UK. I like it because it’s not as dry (despite the name) as most British ciders, but any good apple cider would be fine. A nice lager would also do the trick.


Apple Sausage Roast

(Adapted from Tesco Magazine)
Serves 4

What You Need:

6-8 good pork sausages
2 small onions, skinned and cut into eigths
3-4 medium potatoes, scrubbed (or peeled) and quartered
1 Tbsp Dijon mustard
1 Tbsp wholegrain mustard
2 Tbsp balsamic vinegar
2 Tbsp rapeseed (or sunflower) oil
2 sprigs of rosemary
3 apples (I used Braeburn)

What You Do:

1. Preheat oven to 200C/390F/Gas 6
2. Place sausages, potatoes and onions into an oven dish.
3. In a separate bowl, mix the mustards with the vinegar, then add the oil and mix into a thick vinaigrette.
4. Pour about 3/4 of the vinaigrette over the contents of the oven dish, then get your hands dirty by making sure everything is coated in the dressing.
5. Place the rosemary on top, then roast for 20 minutes.
6. Toss the apples in the remaining vinaigrette and add them to the oven dish after 20 minutes. Roast for a further 1/2 hour.

Notes for Next Time:

1. I wouldn’t mind having this be even spicier, and using some English mustard in there along with, or instead of, the Dijon.
2. It occurred to me, upon seeing how peach-like the cooked apples look, that peaches might be an interesting twist, but in that case I would go with spicier sausage, maple syrup and I might have to splash a bit of bourbon in there too. Just sayin’.