Sausage and Mash with gravy...ish.

Ingredients:

12 good sausages, not cheap ones. More than 90% meat minimum. Look on the ingredients.

Onions - white - 3 medium or 2 large.

Potatoes - 6-8 medium to large. Anything that says roast or mash on the bag will work.

Butter - real butter, not light butter, not margarine, a block of decent butter.

Olive or rapeseed oil.

Serves: 4

Method:

1. Pour a good bit of oil into a cold, thick bottom pan if you have one. A thicker bottom makes it easier to control the temperature gradually and holds the heat better. Needs to have a lid.

2. Peel and chop or slice the onions and put them into the cold pan.

3. Put the sausages on top of the onions.

4. Turn on the heat, set it to medium. Leave it alone with the lid on.

5. Put on a pan of water to boil for the potatoes.

6. Add salt to the water.

7. Chop the potatoes into even 1cm slices and put in the water (you can peel them or not, whichever you prefer - I don't). The water doesn't have to be hot yet, just stick them in.

8. Check the sausages and onions. If the onions are starting to catch, stir, if they aren't put the lid back on and leave it.

9. Monitor the sausages and onions, stirring only when it starts to catch. As the onions caramelise, they will catch on the bottom more. This is ok, but don't let them actually burn. If it starts to burn, add a little of the water from the potato pan.

10. Eventually, the onions will become a golden to deep brown and the sausages will crisp slightly in the oil and their own juices.

11. When the sausages are cooked through and the onions are the right colour (about 20-30 minutes), add some of the potato water to deglaze the pan and stir to get up all the brown crispy bits of onion. Keep adding water a little at a time until you have a sauce made up of the onions and sausage juices.

12. Turn off the heat and let it rest for a bit while you deal with the potatoes.

13. Strain the potatoes and put in 100g of butter. You can add more if that's your taste or less if you're looking for something a little more healthy (if you actually want something properly healthy, you've chosen the wrong recipes). Mash until smooth.

14. Plate the mash with sausages on top and a good dollop of the onion gravy sauce.