Sausages have always been my quick fix. The little pink digits in tomato sauce my dad would leave in the Aga for when I came home from school; my local butcher’s joyously plump breakfast sausages, stuffed into a soft mustard-splattered bap; the coarse-grained chorizo I split open like a book and allow to singe on the grill on summer nights. Breakfast sausage, or those fat Italian porkers with fennel seeds and black pepper, often make it to the dinner table, flanked by piles of sweet potato mash, their skins glossy and sticky as Marmite.
They might be cooked over charcoal in the back garden, or slowly burnished in a pan over a low heat, each one turned regularly, watched over as a cat might keep an eye on a nest of slowly fattening fledglings.
Even in summer, there is likely to be mash. More unusual mashes turn up on my plate, too. A can of cannellini beans, drained, warmed and crushed with butter and tarragon; summer carrots sautéed then crushed, roughly, with a fork and tiny mint leaves. Chickpeas cooked from scratch with bay and onion, then beaten to a khaki fluff with warm olive oil, parsley and thyme leaves.
Meanwhile, soft fruits are coming at us nonstop. There is just time to catch the last of the gooseberries and I think we should celebrate with a cake. The sourness of this pale green fruit has an extraordinary alchemy with cake and crumble. Gooseberry fool and trifle are fine, but when the fruit is sandwiched betwixt soft, almondy cake and rough-textured crumble it is unquestionably the right fruit in the right place. Which reminds me that this is the last chance to fill the freezer with them, a squirrel store to simmer into eau-de-nil purées for breakfast, or to melt into the roasting juices of a pork loin on an autumn day.
Grilled sausages, herbed chickpea mash
A coarsely textured sausage is appropriate here – something with large nuggets of meat and plenty of herbs. The tight-skinned fatties at the Italian deli are my first choice, often seasoned with fennel seed and chilli flakes. You can speed the recipe up by using frozen, bottled or canned chickpeas, or by using a pressure cooker. If using the canned or bottled variety, warm them in a little stock before mashing them, as in the recipe.
Serves 3-4
dried chickpeas 200g
bay leaves 4
onion 1, medium-sized
olive oil 80ml
cooking water from the beans 120ml
parsley 25g
thyme 4 or 5 bushy sprigs
fennel seed sausages 6-8
rosemary sprigs 6
Put the chickpeas in a deep bowl, cover with cold water and leave to soak overnight. The following day, drain and tip them into a deep saucepan, cover with water and bring to the boil. Add the bay leaves and the onion, peeled and halved. Lower the heat, partially cover with a lid, then leave to simmer for an hour or until tender.
Cook the sausages, either under the grill or in a frying pan with a little of the oil and the rosemary. Remove the parsley and thyme leaves from their stems and roughly chop them. Drain the chickpeas, reserving 120ml of the cooking water. Warm the olive oil in a small pan. Mash the peas using a food processor or blender, pouring in the warm oil and water, then season generously with salt, pepper, the parsley and thyme.
When the sausages are golden brown, slice them thickly. Pile the mash on a serving dish with the sausages, adding a little olive oil as you serve.
Gooseberry crumble cake
I make a gooseberry crumble cake each summer, sometimes tinkering with the recipe so that it is more cake than crumble, or vice versa. This year I think I have the ratio about right, and the two layers carry enough natural sweetness to balance the sourness of the gooseberries. Once you involve double cream or vanilla ice-cream what is a tea-time cake becomes a dessert.
Serves 8
butter 125g
caster sugar 125g
eggs 3 medium
plain flour 75g
baking powder 1 level tsp
ground almonds 75g
gooseberries 325g
For the crumble:
plain flour 110g
butter 80g
demerara sugar 3 tbsp
You will also need a 20cm, deep-sided, springform cake tin.
Cream the butter and caster sugar together until light and fluffy. This is best done using a food mixer. Stir together the flour, baking powder and ground almonds. Break the eggs into a bowl and beat with a fork or small whisk.
Make the crumble. Rub the 80g of butter, in small pieces, into the flour then stir in the demerara sugar and set aside. Set the oven at 180C/gas mark 4.
Line the cake tin.
Add the beaten egg, a little at a time, to the creamed butter and caster sugar. If the mixture starts to curdle, then add a few tbsp of the flour mixture to bring it together. Mix in the flour, baking powder and almonds.
Transfer the batter to the prepared cake tin and smooth the surface. Scatter the gooseberries evenly over the mixture. Trickle a teaspoon or two of cold water over the crumble and shake the dish so the crumbs form a mixture of fine and coarse lumps. Tip the crumble over the gooseberries then bake for 50 minutes to 1 hour, until lightly firm.
Remove the cake from the oven and set aside to rest until cool. Run a palette knife carefully around the edge of the cake after 15 minutes or so, to loosen it. Remove the cake from the tin and serve.
Email Nigel at nigel.slater@observer.co.uk or follow him on Twitter@NigelSlater
