Bangers and Mash in a Tasty Onion Gravy

[Chelsea (Thermie Groupie)]

LOL - Yes it's very ok to give negative feedback.  Especially when it is done as politely as you did .  I'm kind of not surprised that you didn't like it.  Overcooked veg, starchy potatoes and a gravy without meat juice.  It wouldn't appeal to me either .

It is honestly worth giving steamed snags a go though.  I was really amazed when I read on the forum here that people were steaming their sausages and thought they must have tasted and looked terrible.  I decided to give them a go one day and I haven't pan fried them since. 

This recipe gets so much interest on my blog.  From the emails I get from friends, people either seem to love it or hate it. 

[judydawn]

Millipede, you could always steam the sausages then panfry them for a bit of colour - best of both worlds?  I can remember when I was a kid and my parents used to hold BBQ's for the tennis club at our place.  The sausages were always boiled first before throwing onto the BBQ.

[Zan]

Also if you don't like the idea of steamed sausages use the darker coloured ones. First time we did this we used beef with tomato and basil ones (macro organic at woolworths) the second time the chicken ones - the first produced a much nicer gravy and were far more appealing - really looked fine, the chicken ones were a bit insipid looking. Though 2 mins in the fry pan afterwards would have browned them up fine.

[judydawn]

We had this for tea tonight (at last) and it went down very well indeed.  I used Mild Beef Curry sausages from Foodland, 5 thick ones and we could only manage to eat 1 each. The reason I  finally did this recipe was because I had 180g of leftover caramelised onion in the fridge that needed to be used.  I sauteed the garlic, added 110g of the onions (froze the rest) and as I had forgotten to buy some mushrooms I added one of those tiny 3gm packets of dried which I had soaked, adding the soaking liquid in with the beef stock. The gravy was very tasty, made heaps so I have frozen what I didn't need to go with the 3 remaining sausages.  I went to the extra trouble of making a half batch of parsley sauce for the cauli but I wouldn't go to that trouble again and will try and keep it as simple as possible. Thanks Chelsea, DH might get sausages a bit more now and he will be pleased about that.

[Chelsea (Thermie Groupie)]

Oh yummy.  I love caramelised onions and can imagine they would work very nicely in this. 

[Kimberley]

Thank you we LOVED this. I was a bit skeptical about the steamed snags too, but this is the only way I will be doing them from now on. I didn't have beef stock so just used some chicken stock powder in water, and for the last 2 minutes added 1 tblspn of cornflour and 1 tbspn of gravy. It was a light coloured gravy but really yummy.
Thanks again, will be doing this regularly!

[judydawn]

We had this again today for lunch - fancy us eating sausages twice in a month   This time I used a couple of swiss browns in the gravy along with 100g of my frozen caramelised onion and 1/4 tspn sambal oelek.  The potatoes in the basket were covered in bits of mushroom from the steaming process so I rinsed them out under hot running water before mashing them with hot milk and butter - didn't want them looking too grey. It is such an easy meal to make and I really enjoy sausages cooked this way. A tasty gravy and good quality sausages is certainly the key to success here.

[rainbow]

I tried this recipe tonight.  I already had a mushroom sauce to serve so I proceed as follows:

600g water in tmx bowl
500g potatoes in basket
Sausage in varoma dish
Cook 20 mins varoma speed 4
Add vegies to varoma tray and continue cooking another 10mins varoma speed 4
everything cooked in that time so I simply emptied the bowl and added the potatoes with about 30g butter and some milk
used the butterfly and mashed at speed 3 for approx 30 secs.
Served with the Mushroom sauce and it went down well with the family, very easy meal

[Thermomixer]

Good idea with the mushroom suace.  Thinking 

[KarenH]

I tried this tonight as my first effort ever using the varoma - and it was fabulous!  I was also a steamed sausage sceptic, but they were wonderful.  I added extra mushrooms (4 swiss browns) in with the onion and garlic at the first step, and so my potatoes were slightly brown/grey in colour, but were extra tasty.  I also used gravox instead of flour, and it almost made the gravy too tasty (if there is such a thing!).  I think the onion, garlic, beef stock and mushrooms were plenty of flavour without using the gravox - next time I will try with flour.

Thanks for a fabulous recipe!

[Chelsea (Thermie Groupie)]

I am so glad that you liked it KJH.  It is such an easy dish to make and very tasty with the mushrooms. 

[Chelsea (Thermie Groupie)]

I have been making this a bit lately as we are growing our own mushrooms and the portabellos are going crazy.  The past couple of times I have filled the steamer basket with washed new potatoes (tiny little ones with their skins on).  They cook beautifully and are so yummy!!!

Please note that I have changed the recipe to include the step of scraping the mushroom sludge from the bottom of the steamer basket into the TM bowl (before thickening the gravy).  I wouldn't want anyone throwing away all that yummy mushroom flavour! 

[judydawn]

Chelsea, you know how the potato can get a greyish colour because of the mushrooms cooking below, I was wondering if you could perhaps steam the sausages in the basket and put the potatoes up into the varoma dish.   Anyone tried this method?

[Chelsea (Thermie Groupie)]

It is definitely worth a shot.  I don't think I could fit enough snags in the basket to feed us (and have the steam move around and cook them properly), but if you were only steaming 4 or 5 I think it would work well. 

[grub72]

I made this dish tonight and the whole crew loved it!!  We were big sceptics of snags in the varoma, but they come out beautiful, and the mash was nice too, but next time I might use less milk, I like it a bit more formed up than what I produced tonight....

This ones going on the menu list...