Tuesday 25 January 2011

Wine, wine, glorious wine!

As experiments go, this one has been one of my favourites. I have been trying out wine in a few recipes and each one has gone down extremely well. I picked up a few old cookery books in my local antique centre and found a few poems inside them. Just my sort of book! I found this inside:

There's nothing like the blood of grapes
To give escapes
From care's infesting festering apes,
To set the wit upon probation,
To give an edge to conversation,
To make a friend of a relation;
There's nothing like the blood of grapes.

From One Thousand and One Nights
Powys Mathers


There's also nothing like the blood of grapes to help flavour your food! I used it last night in a sausage casserole with my flatmate and it was amazing. I threw everything into my pan and let it simmer away for 45 minutes. Try it, it was so easy:


Venison Sausage Casserole with Butter Beans




Ingredients

6 pack of Sausages, each sausage cut into thirds. (can be whatever you fancy but I found the vension sausages on offer and wanted to try something new. Make sure they are more than 70% meat.)
1 large onion, diced.
Knob of Butter
Few Bay leaves
Glass of Red Wine (good quality- wine you would drink!)
Thyme, chopped.
Peppers, diced. (or whatever vegetables you have left over and want to throw in)
Small tin of Butter Beans
Few cherry tomatoes, quartered.
Beef Stock
Any Chutneys in the fridge that would sweeten it up (i.e tomato chutney, caramelised red onion chutney)
Salt and Pepper

  1. Add knob of butter to pan and then throw in onions. Fry off for about 10 minutes until soft.
  2. Add the glass of red wine and leave to reduce with the onions until nearly gone.
  3. Next, fry off sausages for a few minutes to brown with the onions.
  4. Scatter bay leaves on top.
  5. Add the stock and turn down to low.
  6. Now add in all the vegetable (in my case, peppers, butter beans and tomatoes).
  7. Sprinkle with salt, pepper and thyme.
  8. Add any chutneys you have lying around, even mustard if you wish.
  9. Simmer for half an hour until the wine and stock and thickened and serve with buttery mashed potatoes.
  10. Serve with the rest of your red wine and enjoy!

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