Traditional Irish Colcannon

This is one of my favourite winter dishes and can be made for 1 or 20 people just as easily. This recipe took less than 20 minutes so it’s great for mid week dinners and last minute guests.

Ingredients for 2
4-6 sausages
2-3 medium potatoes
1/4 cabbage
1 small onion thinly sliced
50g butter
50g cream
Nutmeg
Salt

I buy Dohertys Gluten Free sausages from Sainsbury’s simply because they’re incredibly tasty. Grill or cook the sausages as per the pack, usually around 18 minutes.

To speed up the mash, peel & dice the potatoes then drop them into boiling water with a good pinch of salt and continue boiling. They should be soft within 10 minutes. Make sure they’re cooked through without breaking up. (If you stab the cubes with a fork, they will slide slowly off the fork but not be mushed). Undercooked potato makes lumps & over cooked makes it wet which is hard to recover from. If you’re not sure, undercooked is better. Drain the potatoes and leave for 2 minutes to let the remaining steam escape.

While the potato is boiling, fry the onion until starting to go golden then set to one side. Remove the stalks of the cabbage leaves with a paring knife and finely shred. Melt half the butter in a pan & sauté the cabbage for about three minutes, always keeping it on the move. When it starts to turn golden at the edges, add the cooked onion & take off the heat.

To the potatoes, add the cream and a sprinkling of nutmeg then ‘mash’ with a hand blender. This removes any lumps and makes a very creamy mash. When it gets to the stage where you could pipe it like icing, it’s perfect.

Add the cabbage and onion to the mash and gently mix together.
You can do this over heat if it has cooled down too much.

Serve in a big mound and make a well in the middle to melt the remaining butter. Add the sausages on the side.

A nice meat gravy is quite good too and soaks into the mash. You can quickly make this by adding a little water to the juices from the sausages and some corn flour to thicken if needed.