BBQ95/17: Sausage and Mash

BBQ95/17 – Sausage and Mash:

We had been out for the day, got back quite late and although we planned to have sausage and mash I was tempted to cook it indoors to get it ready quicker. Luckily I fired up the grill because the sausages were fantastic! (The sausages were Auchtertool originals from Puddledub Pork who run a pork farm local to us – great quality products!)

The Prep:

I am still using the fabulous Hardwood Blend from Oxford Charcoal. There was a fair bit left over from the previous cook so I put a bit of new charcoal in the bottom of the chimney and topped it up with the older stuff. It took a bit longer to light but it was fine and I poured it into the charcoal baskets before placing the hellfire halo on top.

The Cook:

Sausages are the thing most of us have cooked to death on disposable grills over the years. To avoid this I cook them indirectly by placing the charcoal baskets together in the centre of the grill and then I line the sausages up in a ring around the baskets keeping them just far away enough so they aren’t getting cooked directly. After I lined them up I chucked some Apple wood chips from Hot Smoked in.

sausage and mash

I put the lid on and left it alone for around 3 minutes before rotating the sausages a bit and placing more wood chips in.

sausage and mash

After another 3 minutes the sausages were taking on a great colour from the wood chips.

sausage and mash

I checked the internal temperature with the Thermapen and they were approaching 75C so I moved them out to the cooler, outer edge.

sausage and mash

Whilst I was playing with fire my wife had been making the mash and gravy, her notes are below:

As far as I am concerned, it should be illegal to even contemplate sausages without mash and gravy, so that’s exactly what we had. 

 
Simple mash was pimped up with lashings of butter and some freshly snipped chives from the garden (remember to cut with scissors directly into your mash, chopping them quite often results in bits flying all around your kitchen and having none left for your tatties!).  And if you’re a smoker enthusiast, you’ll have some smoked butter hanging out in your fridge like I do and that just takes it to the next level.
 
Gravy, I love the stuff. I must confess, we used to use a type of gravy that came in a round, cardboard tub that required you to simply pour on water and that would totally work; but if you have a few basic store cupboard ingredients and 10 mins spare, you can also do an easy onion gravy…
We had a bag of shallots that were needing used up so I sliced 8 of those, but 2 regular onions would also do the trick. Fry them off in some butter (smoked if you fancy it) with some rapeseed/olive oil mixed in to stop the butter from burning.  Fry gently until soft. Add a tablespoon of balsamic vinegar and continue frying until it appears to have evaporated. Add in around 300ml of beef stock and a tablespoon of Worcestershire sauce and let it bubble away until you need it.  I added some cornflour to thicken (half a tablespoon mixed with 2 tablespoons of cold water to form a paste then mix in and cook for a minute or 2), but it would be totally fine as is….if not a bit hard to pour.  And that’s it – easy!  No need for boxes any more, right?!
The gravy was cooked in a cast iron pan directly over the charcoal on the sear grate.

sausage and mash

Time to Eat:

With everything ready I wasn’t sure how to serve it up, it wasn’t going to look it’s best just on a plate but I don’t want to end up on “We want plates!”.

sausage and mash

sausage and mash

The sausages were cracking. They are so easy to cook but so easy to ruin as well but this method works well for me. They had a great smoky taste from the wood chips and slowly grilling them kept them nice and juicy.

The mash and gravy were very nice, my wife did well with those! The smoked butter in the mash was a nice touch!

Cook Equipment: Hellfire Halo
Cook Method: Indirect around the edge of the sear grate
Charcoal: Oxford Charcoal Hardwood Blend
Smoking Wood: None
Cook temperature: 250C
Cook time: 10 minutes (ish)
Internal temperature: 75C
Notes: No major changes

Such a simple cook but it tasted great, wish we had more sausages!

 


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