MORE BANG FOR YOUR BUCK - Bangers & Mash

 

MORE BANG FOR YOUR BUCK!

It’s that time of year.  Foliage and football.  Cold, crisp air that visualizes your breath (well, on those fall/winter days when it’s not 100 degrees in Ojai).  Soup and stew weather.  Carved pumpkins and pumpkin pie.  And, how can we forget bangers & mash?  Huh?

This time of year, I often flashback to a trip to London just before Thanksgiving.  Being a 60’s kid, that’s not all I flashback to, but I digress.  It was cold and damp in London (or is that redundant?) and, after spending a day shopping on Portobello Road, I needed to warm up, so I wandered into a pub (a genuine British pub – not today’s trendy gastro pub, but a “pub grub” pub).  Sitting by a roaring fire, sipping ale, a waitress whizzed by carrying a plate covered with appetizing sausages, a huge mound of fluffy mashed potatoes and something green. When she came for my order, I pointed to a woman now ravishing those sausages and said, “I’ll have what she’s having.”  Soon, I, too, was savoring sausages that tasted like nothing I’d ever had before.  They certainly weren’t Jimmy Dean’s… or wieners or knockwurst or bratwurst, oh my.  So, being a fledgling foodie at the time, I asked my waitress, who cheerfully answered: “Bangers!” OK.  New to me.  But, ever the diligent researcher, I soon discovered that the term bangers goes back as early as WWI, when meat shortages forced folks to use more water than meat as filler when making sausages.  This made them pop when heated, thus, “Bang.”  Traditionally they are served with mashed potatoes, onion gravy, fried onions and peas (the something green). I feel ever so British when I have them, eh wot?

The dish has become my cold weather comfort food, but where does one find bangers in California’s sunny Ojai valley?  Westridge ho, the wagons!!!  Well, in my case, my hybrid SUV.  And, lo and behold, right there in the midtown store among the display of freshly made sausages in the meat section, ready to be tossed into a pan and live up to their name… bangers!  Timing is everything as Max Badger, the market’s young sausage maker, told me.  He rotates the sausages he makes each day, but did assure me he’d make bangers to order.  His entire sausage display is very impressive.  Among the choices that day: traditional Italian sausages, pork or chicken with garlic & basil, Bratwurst made with Guiness stout, Andouille Cajun and, during the holidays, Max told me, he’ll create some French apple, cranberry sausages.  Stuffing, anyone?

Of course I bought his bangers as fast as he made them for me.

Bangers & mash for dinner.  I never have to leave Ojai. Good thing I belong to a gym!

I'm sure y'all have a Westridge market with a creative butcher in your own town.  So, as colorful foliage appears and the cool autumn air smells, well, like autumn air, enjoy a perfect bangers and mash dinner.

 

  BANGERS AND GRAVY

2-4 Banger Sausages

Olive oil for sauteing
1 cup white onions, chopped
Sherry to deglaze
1 clove garlic, minced
3/4 cup low salt Chicken broth (or Chicken stock)
1/2 cup whole milk

Flour for thickening

Heat a large skillet. When hot, add the Olive oil and swirl. Add the bangers and cook through on all sides until done – about 10-15 minutes. Remove them to a plate and place a loose, aluminum foil tent over them. With the pan still hot, add the onions and cook them until browned, occasionally deglazing with a little sherry. When the onions are almost done, add the garlic and continue to cook for 1 minute. Add the Chicken broth (or stock), milk, and combine well. Sprinkle in small amounts of flour, until the gravy thickens. If it gets too thick, thin with more milk or chicken stock.