Sausages roasted with apples, grapes and sherry

Ingredients

• 1 large onion, peeled
• 2 small eating apples, unpeeled, halved and cored
• 250g (9oz) black grapes, separated into little clusters
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• Leaves from 2 sprigs of rosemary
• 2 tsp soft light-brown sugar
• 4 good-quality pork sausages
• 100ml (4fl oz) sherry

Method

Halve the onion and cut each half into three wedges. Put these, the apples and grapes into an ovenproof dish (a small gratin dish is ideal). It should be small enough to hold the fruit snugly – if it’s too big the sherry will evaporate too quickly.

Add 1 tbsp olive oil, the rosemary and some seasoning, then toss the apples, grapes and onions with your hands to get them lightly coated. Sprinkle the sugar on each piece of apple.

Preheat the oven to 190C, 375F, gas 4. Heat the remaining oil in a frying pan and quickly fry the sausages on all sides until golden. You are just doing this to get a bit of colour, not to cook the sausages through. Put them on top of the apples, grapes and onions, then pour the sherry over the onions and fruit – the idea is that the fruit and veg cook partly in the liquid, partly out.

Put the dish into the oven and bake for 50 minutes. The sausages will become dark brown, the apple and onion tender and a little singed and the grapes a bit wrinkled. If the dish is getting too dark, cover with foil. By the end of the cooking time there won’t be much liquid left at all – it should have been absorbed by the onions. Serve with mash and cabbage, or a baked potato and a watercress salad.

Tip

We have tended to see sausages as cheap food, but a cheap sausage will taste like a cheap sausage. 

When you’re shopping for them find out how much meat they contain and what else might have snuck in there too. 

Sausages may form the basis of many simple, rustic meals but those meals will only be as good as the sausages you put in them. Buy good ones for the dish below and you’ll have a pretty easy supper – but also a supper worth getting excited about.