Sausages and Colcannon

It's St Patrick's Day! If you're thinking of a meal to go with your Guiness to celebrate, I recommend a good colcannon. Colcannon comes from cál ceannann which means 'white-headed cabbage' (thanks Wikipedia!), which is basically mashed potatoes with cabbage or kale. I had my Colcannon with sausages and yummy mustard gravy, but really you can have it with anything else you want and gravy. Lots of gravy! Guiness gravy is especially good and works well with Colcannon so that's an idea. 

You may be put off by the idea of cabbage and mash together, I blame English primary schools for putting everyone I know off cabbage and pretty much most of the brassica family. But this dish doesn't have to be boiled to death! In fact I used White pointed cabbage which tastes sweeter than other types of cabbage and is brilliant raw, especially in coleslaws. So instead of destroying the flavour of the cabbage by boiling it, I chopped it finely and mixed the raw cabbage and raw spring onion with the mash potatoes. The result is a brilliant blend of creamy mash, crunchy, sweet cabbage and fresh spring onions. 

It looks like a giant dollop of mash that's landed on my plate, but seriously this stuff is so good we went for seconds. So try it with raw cabbage, I promise it's better than the boiled stuff, especially if you can get your hands on pointed cabbage. My sausages are of the pork and apple variety which is why I went with mustard flavoured gravy using red wine as the base, but like I said you can use guiness or cider for this instead. 

Ingredients
6 fat pork Sausages (about 250g)
6 Potatoes, peeled and roughly diced
50g Cream
Milk
Salt & Pepper
2 spring Onions
1/2 head of pointed Cabbage
Water
red Wine
beef or chicken Stock
1-2 tbsp Flour
Butter
1 tbsp Mustard
1/2 tsp Sage
1 Bay leaf

Recipe
Place sauages under hot grill to cook for 20 minutes or until browned, turn each side every 8 minutes for even colour.

Boil potatoes until soft enough to mash. Finely slice the cabbage- the finer the better. And finely slice the spring onions, leave to one side. Once potatoes are tender, drain water and mash with a knob of butter and the cream. Add a bit of milk if it's too thick to work with. Add cabbage and spring onions, season and mix together.

For the gravy, start by making a roux with the flour and butter. Add a splash of red wine and loosen the roux. Cook on a medium-high heat for around 5 minutes to cook the alcohol out and reduce by half. Then add around 1/2 cup of stock, sage and bay leaf and simmer until reduced again. I used wholegrain mustard for my gravy, so I addeed this right at the end. I find if you're using Dijon it should be added sooner to blend well. Strain gravy through a sieve in a pouring cup.

Assemble dish- start with the mash, add the sausages and pour with gravy. I had a great action shot of the gravy being poured over my sausages by alas I deleted it by mistake. :( Eat.