Bangers and Colcannon with Guinness Gravy (Irish Sausages and Mashed Potatoes)

Lately I’ve been struggling to find quality recipes and when I was about to give up on new recipes I found a fantastic site called yummly.com. It lets you choose a cuisine, diet, and even specific ingredients. You can really customize the type of dish you want to make and this week I decided to pick from the “Irish” tab. This recipe was one of the first to come up and it ended up being an amazing dinner. I could not get my hands on any English or Irish sausages like the recipe calls for so I had to use regular sausages. Nonetheless it came out amazing and the gravy is to die for! These are also the best mashed potatoes I’ve ever made. The cabbage and bacon (we used turkey bacon) complimented each other perfectly. This will be my standard St. Patty’s Day dinner for now on.

Serves: 4     Calories: 520 (I know that’s kind of high for what I usually cook)    Time: approx 1 hour – 1 hour 15 minutes

Ingredients:

• 1 lb potatoes, peeled and diced
• 1/4 lb bacon, cut into 1 inch pieces (We used turkey bacon to cut back on calories and fat)
• pepper to taste
• 1 tbsp butter (we used margarine, once again to cut back on the bad stuff)
• 1/4 small head of cabbage, sliced very thin
• 4 green onion, sliced
• salt and pepper
• 1 tbsp oil (we used canola)
• 1 lb sausage, Irish or English preferred (we used regular sausages since we could not find the Irish or English ones)
• 1 large onion, sliced
• 1 clove of garlic (you know me, if it calls for one clove I use two haha)
• 1 tsp thyme, chopped
• 2 tbsp flour
• 1 bottle of Guinness
• 2 tbsp mustard
• 1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
• 1 tbsp brown sugar
• 1 tbsp butter (once again we used margarine)
• 1 tbsp sour cream
• milk to taste

Directions:

1. Bring a pot of water to boil, add potatoes and simmer until tender (approximately 20-30 minutes)
2. Cook bacon in a large pan over medium heat until it starts to curl. (about 3-5 minutes)
3. Add 1 tbsp butter (or margarine) to the bacon and season with salt and pepper. Cook until it foams, about 1 minute.
4. Add sliced cabbage to the bacon. Mix to coat and let cook until tender (approximately 10 minutes)
5. Add the green onions to the cabbage mixture and cook for 5 minutes.
6. In a separate pan heat 1 tbsp oil over medium heat.
7. Add the sausages and cook until golden brown (approximately 2-4 minutes per side) and then set them aside.
8. Add onions and sauté until tender (approximately 5-7 minutes)
9. Add garlic and thyme and sauté until fragrant, 1 minute
10. Sprinkle in flour and let it cook for a few minutes
11. Add Guinness, mustard and worcestershire sauce and brown sugar along with the sausages and simmer for 10 minutes.
12. Remove sausage again and continue to simmer until the gravy reduces by half (approximately 10 minutes)
13. Drain water and mash the cooked potatoes. Mix in cabbage followed by 1 tbsp butter (margarine),  sour cream and enough milk until you get your desired mashed potato consistency.
14. Spoon mashed potatoes, or colcannon if you want to be correct :), onto plates and top with sausages.
15. Drizzle, or as Perry says “pour” gravy over top and enjoy!

*Photo is an original taken by me

**Original recipe found at http://www.yummly.com