Recipe corner - venison sausages braised in red wine

Well, I promised you a delicious sausage recipe...

Hang on.  I have to pause here to snicker about the phrase "delicious sausage".  God, I have a puerile sense of humour.

Now.  Bangers, mash and onion gravy is my favourite thing.  Specifically though: good sausages, buttery mash and D's patented red onion gravy.  I love, love, love it.  And when I have sausages to hand I don't tend to do much with them apart from that, or possibly - possibly a sandwich.  But I've seen some delicious sounding other recipes recently which has made me think I need to stretch my sausage wings...

....pause for another snicker....

....a bit further.  And, with a packet of venison sausages lurking in the freezer that I bought at the fabulous Kirkstall deli market last year, I did just that.

This is a Delia Smith recipe originally that I have tweaked a little to make it a tad more WW friendly.

Ingredients

5 pork and venison sausages, quartered
250ml red wine
250ml beef stock
1 dessertspoon olive oil
65g pancetta cubes
1 large clove garlic, peeled and crushed
Red onion, peeled and chopped
1 level dessertspoon juniper berries
1 level teaspoon chopped fresh thyme
2 bay leaves
175 g medium-sized, open-cap mushrooms
1 heaped teaspoon plain flour
1 rounded teaspoon mustard powder
25 g half fat butter, softened
1 rounded tablespoon redcurrant jelly
salt and freshly milled black pepper

Serves 3, 13 pro points per portion

Heat the oil in the casserole dish then, with the heat at medium, brown the sausage chunks
evenly all over.

 

Transfer these to a plate and, in the delicious sausagey oil, brown the diced bacon, adding the onion after a couple of minutes and then, when the bacon is brown and the onion translucent, add the garlic for the final minute or so of cooking.

 

Now lightly crush the juniper berries and tip them into the dish along with the browned sausages, the wine, half the stock and the herbs. Season lightly (remember the bacon and sausages will be salted so proceed with caution), bring it up to a gentle simmer and then cover, lower the heat and allow to bubble away quietly for half an hour.

 

After that, add the mushrooms and leave everything to cook gently without a cover for a further 20 minutes or so.  At this stage, I found that I had very little liquid left - if this is the case for you then add some more stock.  Keep the heat very low to prevent it from boiling to nothing. The mushrooms will reduce some water so don't add too much initially but keep an eye on it and top up as necessary.

 

To finish off, remove the sausages and vegetables to a warm serving dish, mix the flour and the mustard powder with the softened butter until you have a smooth paste and whisk this, a little
at a time, into the sauce until it thickens and becomes glossy  Now whisk through the redcurrant jelly and let everything bubble for a few more minutes, then take the casserole off the heat, whisk in the and return the sausages and the veg so it is ready to serve with a pile of creamy mash and some leafy green vegetables.