Gluten-free sausages roasted until burnished, piled onto buttery mash with an onion gravy that gets its colour from properly caramelised onions rather than flour.
Prep
20 mins
Cook
45 mins
Servings
4
Per serving
£2.30
Difficulty
easy
The gravy is what makes or breaks this. Most onion gravies lean on a flour roux and a stock cube; this one builds colour by cooking the onions right down to a jammy tangle, deglazing with cider vinegar and thickening with a whisper of cornflour, so it stays glossy and tastes of onion rather than paste.
Toss the sausages with the oil in a roasting tin and roast at 190C fan for 30-35 minutes, turning twice, until they are burnished all over. Roasting rather than frying means you can get on with the gravy.
Melt 20g of the butter in a heavy frying pan over a medium-low heat, add the onions, thyme sprigs and a good pinch of salt, and cook for 25 minutes, stirring every few minutes. They will go from white to floppy to a soft golden-brown tangle. Add the sugar for the last 5 minutes.
If they catch, splash in a tablespoon of water and scrape the base — those brown bits are the flavour, you just don't want them burnt.
Pour in the vinegar and let it hiss away, then add the stock and bring to a simmer. Slake the cornflour with 2 tablespoons of cold water and whisk it in. Simmer for 5 minutes until the gravy is glossy and coats a spoon, then stir in the mustard and season. Fish out the thyme stalks.
Boil the potatoes in salted water for 18 minutes until completely tender. Drain, steam dry for 3 minutes, then mash with the remaining 50g butter and the warm milk until smooth. Season generously — under-salted mash tastes of nothing.
Warm the milk. Cold milk makes mash gluey and dull.
Pile the mash into shallow bowls, lean two sausages against each mound and ladle the onion gravy over the lot. Good with buttered greens or a spoonful of peas.