One Pot Sausage Casserole

Sausage casserole is one of my favourite winter dish. Simple and economical to make, perfect to share with friends and family, as well as some leftover to take to work the next day! A sandwich van visit my work each morning and I must say they do amazingly nice sandwiches, pastries, cake etc but in this temperature, nothing beat a hearty hot meal at lunch time!

Instead of using Blythburgh's free range sausages, debbie & andrew's Perfect Pork sausages was used in this recipe. I was rather surprised to find how pricey processed meat costs at supermarkets, even their own brand 'finest' sausages were over £3 per pack! Of course it is all about the meat content but that is more expensive than free range ones from the butcher! Since debbie & andrew's was on special I thought why not give these a go? 

As mentioned, % of meat is very important in sausages. Anything less than 80% meat  content really is not worth purchasing as you can imagine they are bulked up with all sorts of substances other than meat. These Perfect Pork sausages contain 40% pork shoulder and 40% pork belly - interesting. Never through of stuffing pork belly into a sausage casing, what a great idea as the fat should make it more juicy! Let's get cracking with this casserole. 

 

Serves 2

6 pork sausages

1 onion, roughly sliced
2 dried whole chillies 

2 stalks of celery, finely chopped

1 carrot, finely chopped

3 garlic gloves, crushed

1 tin of chopped tomatoes 

100g pearl barley 

350ml chicken or vegetable stock

2 tbsp tomato puree

2 bay leaves 

Salt & pepper, to season  

1.  Heat some oil in a cast iron casserole dish, brown the sausages. Remove to cool on a plate.

2. In the same casserole dish, stir in the crushed garlic,  dried chillies, onion, celery and carrot. Cook for 10 minutes or until soft. 

3. Pour in the chopped tomatoes, stock, pearl barley & bay leaves. Bring to boil. Mix in the tomato puree and sausages, leave to simmer for an hour or until the barley is soft. Keep an eye on the liquid level, add more boiling water if needed.

4. Season to taste.

I did not serve it with anything else but casserole on its own as it has the protein, fiber and carbohydrate altogether!

Enjoy.