Recipe - Slow Cooked Sausages in Apple and El Gaitero Sauce with Creamy Mashed Potatoes

If you are a regular reader of this blog I think you've come to understand that I really appreciate my slow cooker. It is really lazy cookery, but the results are quite awesome most of the time. To come home to a ready cooked meal and a flat that smells of foody goodness is worth quite a bit.

This is one of my favourites, I think I found the recipe in one of the supermarkets own food magazines and it has evolved from there.

I always try to get as many different sausages as possible in here, it turns into sort of a sausage roulette.

As my care-package receivers (read: the poor bastards I dump my leftovers on) have noticed, this is a dish that taste almost better the next day. It is also highly recommended for freezing.

For that perfect comfort food feeling, serve it with some really creamy mash and let the sauce mix in well.

I'm not a cider drinker at all so I don't really know which ones are good and which ones are bad. However, I've come to use a specific cider for this one, it's a Spanish cider called El Gaitero. It works beautifully with the pork sausages so I'm sticking with it. I'm fairly sure that you'll get a better result with El Gaitero than with White Lightning. ;)

Enough talk, let's head over to the shop...

Ingredients
Olive oil
8 good quality pork sausages, mix and match
10 - 12 thin rashers of smoked streaky bacon, cut into pieces
2 leeks, cut into 2cm slices
3 Gala apples, peeled, cored and finely diced
1 330ml bottle cider (I recommnend El Gaitero)

Method
Heat the olive oil in a frying pan on medium heat

Fry the sausages in batches, don't crowd the pan, until nicely browned on all sides. Transfer to the slow cooker.

Fry the bacon pieces in batches, yet again - don't crowd the pan, until it starts to brown. Use a slotted spoon to transfer to the slow cooker.

Finally, fry the leeks in batches, guess what - don't crowd the pan, until a nice brownage starts to appear. Use a slotted spoon to transfer to the slow cooker.

Put the apple pieces on top, pour on the cider and cover with the slow cooker lid.

Cook on low for about 8 hours.

Serve with creamy mash and a good dollop of chilli and whole grain mustard.

Enjoy!