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Continuing the “Food of the U.K.” tour, I made bangers and mash, mainly because I could, and I’ve been watching, “MI-5″….and, “Yes, I do know they’re British.” 

This is a small recipe because I have unbelievable amounts of leftovers from all the other cooking this weekend.  It’s also a good recipe when you have multiple small kitchen chores, like, oh, I don’t know, washing up from a weekend of cooking.

Ingredients:

1 large white onion

3/4 stick of butter

1 package pork sausage

2 tablespoons Argo cornstarch (It’s gluten-free.)

Splash of cheap red wine  (What the hell is a, “splash”? I would guess about 2 tablespoons, enough to “deglaze” the pan.  “Deglaze” is my new favorite cooking word, and one every new cook should know:  it means to get the crusty bits up from the bottom of the pan.)

1 heaping teaspoon yellow mustard (Grey Poupon is gluten-free.)

2 cups beef broth (Pacific is gluten-free.)

optional:  Worcestershire sauce  (also gluten-free, and always has been.)

2 large potatoes

2 cups store brand frozen peas

Kitchen apparati:

stove

microwave

plates for chopping onions and putting under and on top of things in the microwave

knife  (I actually use a steak knife sometimes.  It’s there, and I know how it handles, so it won’t cut me.)

heat resistant spatula

two microwave safe dishes for cooking potatoes and peas–these can be large bowls to be covered with plates during cooking.

trusty cast iron pan

An enormous amount of patience.  This recipe takes about an hour and a half.

Directions:

Take your sausages out of the freezer.  Brown them on a  medium-high heat to get a nice char on the outsides.  While they are browning, peel the onion and chop it finely.  This should take about ten minutes.  Remove the sausages from the pan.  Lower the heat to about medium and add 1/2 stick of butter.  Let the butter melt while you scrub the potatoes.  Set your kitchen timer for 50 minutes–that’s how long it takes to properly carmelize onions.  Add the onions to the pan and stir.  Peel the potatoes and keep stirring the onions about every 2-3 minutes.  Cut the potatoes into small pieces and put them into a microwave safe bowl.  Cover the potatoes with water.  Put a plate under and over the cooking vessel, particularly if it’s just a bowl;  you won’t have to clean out the microwave when it boils over.   Put the potatoes in the microwave and set it to run on “High” for twelve minutes.  (Yes, I’m microwaving the potatoes.  You want authentic?  Go back to the U.K.)

Keep stirring the onions.  Go scrub the sink or wash the dishes, being careful to stop every three minutes to stir the onions.  After about twenty minutes, they will start to carmelize, which means, “They turn browner.”  Turn the heat on the onions down to about 30% power, and keep stirring for the remaining thirty minutes.  (There is no way to speed this up.  Really, there isn’t.)  Leave the potatoes in the microwave to cool for at least ten to fifteen minutes, while you’re still stirring and getting out the mustard, wine, and frozen peas.  Put the peas in a bowl and cover them with water.   Keep stirring onions.  Carefully remove the potatoes from the microwave.  Set them down on the counter to cool.  Stir the onions more.  Put the peas in the microwave in on a plate, and set the microwave to run on “high” for eight minutes.  Stir the onions.  Drain the potatoes.  Mash 1/4 stick of butter into them.  Stir the onions.  Put the potatoes on the plates for serving.  Stir the onions.  Let the peas cool in the microwave.  Stir again–this becomes like playing with  one of those zen sand gardens after awhile, except hopefully there is good food.  Drain the peas and spoon onto the plates for serving.  When the timer goes off telling you that your fifty minutes of stirring onions are done, pour in a splash of red wine, add 1 heaping teaspoon of mustard to the pan, and stir.  Add the worchestershire sauce here, if you’re using it.  Set your timer for twelve minutes. Turn up the heat to medium. Add two cups of beef broth and 2 tablespoons of cornstarch to the pan and stir.   (Make sure it’s really dissolved so you don’t have to scrape cornstarch off the sausages. )  Finally, add the sausages to the pan, and stir all of it for another ten minutes while the gravy thickens.  Put the plates of peas and potatoes back in the microwave for about 30-45 seconds for each one–the potatoes and peas will have gotten too cold to serve without being reheated.  Finally, finally, spoon the sausages and gravy over the potatoes.

Inhale.  It smells incredible.

Cost:  About $3.00 per person, if you’re serving two.

Note:  There is more gravy than you’ll need for two, so you can just refrigerate the rest, and eat it, preferably over something like potatoes, later.  Also, if you had to crack open a bottle of wine for this recipe, be sure to play with the idea of something like red wine jello for a later dessert.  (And, “No, you don’t have to boil off all the alcohol, first.”)