![\"Toad](\"https:\/\/www.jameswhelanbutchers.com\/info\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/toad-in-the-hole.jpg\" "\\"Toad")
<\/a><\/p>\nSausages and rashers are very versatile but I have to urge you to buy the best quality and Irish at that; trust me you will notice the difference.\u00a0 Whether you are using them on their own or as part of a more complex dish, you just can\u2019t skimp on price and get a good quality product.\u00a0 In doing so you are cheating yourself out of a proper taste experience.<\/p>\n
While I love having these items to hand for a quick sandwich or a cooked breakfast they provide so many ideas for the cook.\u00a0 Rashers work well in pasta dishes or added to beef stews or a Ragu sauce for flavour.\u00a0\u00a0 I have often used a few sausages for stuffing when I haven\u2019t had sausage meat to hand.\u00a0 Chopped small, sausages and rashers enliven a dull omelette which is basically a combined cooked breakfast, but eaten at lunch or suppertime with a dollop of cream cheese on the side it can be quite the treat.\u00a0 Then there are the more complicated baked sausages in mustard and Toad in the Hole often served with \u2018busy\u2019 mash.\u00a0 I use the word \u2018busy\u2019 because few chefs can leave mash alone these days.\u00a0 They have to snip in some chives or throw in a pinch of cumin or hide some cheese in there.\u00a0 Stop playing with the mash, all it needs is butter and plenty of it!\u00a0 Finally the only thing for pork is onion gravy and getting that right is crucial.\u00a0 \u00a0I think you have to give the onions plenty of time to cook and caramelise to really pull out the full flavour.<\/p>\n
For many years butchers made their own sausages.\u00a0 The general idea, shape and size were the same but obviously the taste varied slightly.\u00a0 At James Whelan Butchers we have a secret recipe for our award winning sausages.\u00a0 When a James Whelan Butcher is deemed ready, and it takes many, many years of service, we reveal the \u201csecret of the sausage to him\u201d in a grand ceremony in the cold room!\u00a0 (Regular readers will know that I\u2019m joking of course, but we do make excellent sausages to our own specific recipe.)\u00a0 You won\u2019t find a James Whelan Butchers\u2019 sausage anywhere else and I\u2019ll personally stand over the quality, the texture and the taste.\u00a0 While many like the challenge of making their own, there are such good sausages available to buy that it seems an unnecessary and painstaking task. \u00a0\u00a0I would also urge you to try one of our sausage variations such as the Italian sausage<\/a> available at the shop.\u00a0 This combines pork mince with a blend of spices and herbs to give an authentic taste of the Mediterranean. \u00a0\u00a0These are great served with pasta or cooked on the BBQ. Mind you, whatever kind of sausage you are after it can be easily found today.\u00a0 From the oily Spanish chorizo that works so well in many dishes to the firm Frankfurter or plump and juicy traditional Irish pork sausage, there are a myriad of inexpensive dishes to prepare.\u00a0 Try as many as you can.\u00a0 Some you\u2019ll love and others will be too spicy, too chewy, too gritty or too smoky; but you\u2019ll never know until you try and don\u2019t just resign the more unusual ones to pizza toppings and buffet platters.\u00a0 Heat them in a pan and see what happens or mix them with some other ingredients or try them cold.\u00a0 I am very confident that cooked with a little style and given some respect bangers and mash could have them dancing in the aisles and asking for seconds but you have to stick to the rules:<\/p>\n 1.\u00a0 Buy the best possible sausages you can get your hands on. (Butchers are probably your best bet.)<\/strong><\/p>\n 2. Master the art of onion gravy and, whatever the recipe says cut the onions big and coarse.<\/strong><\/p>\n 3. Leave the mash alone \u2013 smooth and naked but for a butter lake is all the perfection needed.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Also drop by the James Whelan Butchers Website<\/a> where there are plenty of recipes for all times of the day.<\/p>\n We hope you enjoyed reading this post by Pat Whelan of James Whelan Butchers. Pat is a 5th generation butcher, cook book author and the director of \u00a0James Whelan Butchers with shops in Clonmel, the Avoca Handweavers Rathcoole and Kilmacanogue, Dunnes Stores Cornelscourt, Rathmines and Swords in Dublin.\u00a0Sign up to our newsletter for more updates from James Whelan Butchers<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Who remembers the \u2018mixed grill\u2019?\u00a0 There wasn\u2019t a fashionable restaurant in the land that didn\u2019t carry a mixed grill on its menu back in the 1970s.\u00a0 It was usually a combination of pork; be it chops, rashers or sausages but, somehow it managed to be evening food rather than breakfast as we\u2019ve come to expect […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[25,1],"tags":[566,678,48,677,47,489,56],"yoast_head":"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/p>\n