Simple Sausage and Baked Potato

The other day I found some huge King Edwards potatoes and thought I could happily marry them to the big Cumberland Sausages our local butcher makes. Okay, I don’t live in Cumberland so these are our butcher’s version of them. I am a great believer that local foods should be protected, so true Cumberland or Lincolnshire sausages should have to be made by local companies in the area. But apparently, the large manufacturers think they should have the right to ruin and undermine local produce without a care in the world, damn them. Despite that, these are still good sausages.

This recipe is dead easy but does require that the potatoes are baked in an oven and not gently steamed in a Microwave! So basically this is taties in the oven and grab some sausages, tinned tomatoes, onions and pancetta.

Ingredients

I am a great believer in cooking spuds in tin foil for most of the cooking time (an hour and a half for these giants) and then uncovering them for the last twenty minutes or less. The skins should be just slightly too hard to eat easily as this means that the potato will be layered wonderfully – a yellow, roasted flavoured flesh just below the skin, and fluffy white flesh deeper in.

The sausages bit is easy.

Chop up the sausages into one inch long lumps. Fry them gently with onions and sliced pancetta until just cooked, then cover with a tin or two of tomatoes. Cook gently till the tomatoes are reduced and you have a thick sausage and tomato stew. Add some pepper and whatever herbs you want – you may not need to add salt depending on the pancetta. As always, taste you go!

And that is it. I served the sausage poured into a split baked potato and with loads of peas and boiled carrots fried in butter on the side.

This is another one of those dishes I would serve if I owned my own pub. It is definitely "homely", is easy to cook in quantity and people always say "wow" when it turns up in a big bowl with a big spoon. What is there not to love?