€2 Tuesday: Sausage Popovers

By Mitchell O’Brien

This €1-2 meal comes in at €1.57 per person and is both fun and substantial. This is a very old recipe and has been forgotten from the average household’s meal repertoire: it will fill bellies without emptying pockets. Kids and adults will love this forgotten dinner treat.

Caution: as with the thin and crispy Italian pizzas, be careful that your kids don’t have too many friends over for dinner when you are doing these recipes. If it’s like our house, you won’t be able to get rid of them.

Note: if you’re feeling lazy, you could always buy the Yorkshire puddings. M&S Yorkshires are probably the best on the market, albeit pricier than Aunt Bessie’s. Still, you just can’t beat the homemade version…

Sausage Popovers with Sweet Red Onion Gravy, Buttery Mashed Potatoes & Garden Peas

Total Cost (excluding electricity) €7.85
Serves: 5

Cost per Person: €1.57

Ingredients

[TABLE=13]

For the from” the Kitchen press” items, I have allocated €2.00c – I suggest a jar or money box on the window sill.

Method

Sausage Popovers

1. Pre-heat oven to 220˚C.
2. Sieve 150g of your plain flour into a clean bowl and add three eggs one by one. Whisk the 250ml of milk into the flour and eggs until you have a smooth batter with no lumpy bits. Add your chopped chives and a tablespoon of whole grain mustard.
3. Lightly fry your 10 sausages in a little vegetable oil, for enough time to add a little colour to the sausages. You don’t have to cook them through as they will be going in the oven.
4. Take a bun tin with 12 holes and add a tea spoon of vegetable oil to each section. Place in the pre-heated oven for 5 minutes making sure that the oil gets very hot. This is the secret of a great popover. (This mixture is perfect for Yorkshire Puddings without the sausages).
5. Remove the bun tin from the oven and place a hot sausage in each section and fill each hole with your batter mixture.
6. Return the bun tin with the sausages and batter in each hole (or at least 10 of the holes) to the oven and cook for 18 to 20 minutes.
7. You will know when they are done as the batter will have risen up around the sausages and they will be a golden brown.

Sweet Red Onion Gravy

1. Heat one tbl spoon of vegetable oil in a saucepan and stir in the onion, brown sugar and balsamic vinegar. Cook the onion over a gentle heat for up to 10 minutes until the onions have browned and softened.
2. Remove the onion from the saucepan and keep in a bowl while the rest of the gravy is prepared.
3. Put ½ oz (15g) of real butter into the same saucepan that you used to cook the onions and when it’s melted, add one tbl spoon of plain flour and stir for up to one minute. Add the ½ pint of beef stock and bring to the boil. Simmer for 1 to 2 minutes and then add the onions cooked earlier and simmer on a gentle heat for up to 10 minutes.

Buttery Mashed Potatoes

1. Place the peeled and washed potatoes in a saucepan of boiling salted water and simmer for 20 minutes, or until the potatoes are soft. You can test if they are ready by sticking a fork in one. If it slides into the potato easily, then they are done!
2. Drain the potatoes and leave to one side for 3 minutes so that they dry a bit before you mash them.
3. Add some salt and pepper, 2 tbl spoons olive oil, 30 g butter (very naughty, but nice!) and 200ml milk. Mash with a potato masher until there are no lumps and then take a strong fork and whip the mash vigorously for 1 minute.

Garden Peas

Bring about 1 inch of water to the boil in a small saucepan and add the 300g of frozen garden peas. Once the water has started to boil again, simmer for 3 minutes. Strain the peas and add a pinch of salt & pepper and 1 tea spoon of sugar.

Serving

Take two sausage turnovers and place them to one side of a plate and add two scoops of buttery mash and a couple spoons of garden peas. Then spoon the sweet onion gravy over the sausage popovers and drizzle a little over the mashed potato.