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Wild Boar sausages caught my eye in the butchers yesterday, and Googling around for inspiration I found Ros' great recipe for Wild Boar, Rum and Orange Casserole; I've adapted this to suit sausages and the slow cooker.
Ingredients
Makes 4 servings
- 600g Wild Boar sausages cut into quarters
- 1 orange (I got overexcited in the grocers and picked a blood orange, but I think a regular orange have been more "citrussy")
- A couple of sprigs of rosemary tied with string (with enough spare on one end to hang over one side of the slow cooker and rescue the bunch at the end)
- 2 tablespoons thyme, chopped
- 1 medium onion, finely chopped
- 4 large cloves garlic, finely chopped
- 2 carrots, coarsely chopped
- Splash of olive oil
- Big splash of dark rum
- Half a bottle of white wine
- Some vegetable stock to top up
Preparation
(Prepare ingredients as above, chopping, etc.)
Heat a pan with a splash of olive oil, then stand the sausages on their cut ends to brown and caramelise. When the first end is done do the other end, then brown the sides. (I think, and this may be personal, that this browning is really important in slow cooking as it provides a savoury meaty taste that otherwise evades me.) Pick the sausages out with tongs, leaving the oil and fat in the pan, and put to one side.
Add the onion and carrot to the hot pan and stir around for a minute or so to give them a head start, then add the thyme and garlic. Cook until the onion is softened and browned slightly, then tip into the slow cooker. Grate the zest (i.e. the skin, not the white pith) of the orange directly into the slow cooker so you get all the juices and little sprays of orange oil flavour (put the grated orange to one side, you need the juice later). Pop in the rosemary bunch and trail it's string tail over the side of the pan, then add the sausages on top.
Pour the white wine into the hot pan the onions have just left, turn up the heat and quickly scrape the bottom with a wooden spoon or slice to get all the lovely caramelised meat bits up. When the bottom of the pan is clear, tip the mixture into the slow cooker. Top up with vegetable stock to just cover the sausages.
Cook on high for an hour or so to get things going, then turn down and cook for 6 hours.
Pull the rosemary bunch out by the string and put to one side. Get all the sausages, carrots, herbs and so on into a separate dish with a slotted spoon, and place in a serving dish in the oven to keep warm.
Pour the remaining juices into a pan. These saucy juices will be quite fatty - it's the nature of sausages - and during the next phase you can gently skim the liquid fat from the surface. Now squeeze in the juice from your orange, add a generous splash or two of dark rum and boil the juices to reduce them down, tasting until you're happy (sorry, terribly vague instruction I know).
I served this with mash, with a little mustard mixed in, and savoy cabbage.
Comments
This looks fantastic!
it does, definitely going to try this one.
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