The first time I tried Bangers & Mash I fell in love with this dish. A sausage meal that’s served over mashed potatoes and an onion gravy. This meal delivers a variety of flavors and textures. The sausage is savory and meaty, the gravy is slightly sweet and velvety, and the mashed potatoes are creamy and buttery. It ticks all of the “comfort food” boxes.
Fillers are used in sausages to improve their water holding capacity as well as their texture. In this English Banger a bread filler known as rusk is used. Rusk is different than your typical bread crumbs, as rusk is baked (not air dried) which gives it a slightly better flavor when used in sausages.
Follow basic sausage preparation practices when making this sausage.
- Clean and Sanitize all of your equipment.
- Keep your meat and grinder parts super cold (below 34F)
- Any liquid that is added to the mince needs to be ice cold
- Mix your very chilled meat and seasonings till the mince becomes very tacky
- Stuff the mince into sausage casings and prick out any air pockets
- Cook till the internal temperature reaches 155F
Here are a few things you might find useful when making sausage
- High Quality Natural Casings (AA Grade)
- Iodophor Sanitizer
- MK4 Thermapen (Accurate Thermometer)
- Chef Knife – KOTAI
- Boning Knife
- Sausage Pricker
- Iwatani Professional Chef Torch
- Insta Cure #1
- Non Fat Dry Milk Powder
- Meat Grinders
- Meat Mixers
- Sausage Stuffers
- Smokers
- Bella’s Cold Smoke Generator
Enjoy the video and the recipe. If you have any questions feel free to ask away. If you make this at home I’d love to hear about how it came out!!
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Bangers & Mash
Ingredients
- 700 g lean pork
- 300 g pork back fat
- 18 g kosher salt
- 1.6 g white pepper
- 1.8 g dried sage
- 1 g nutmeg
- .6 g mace
- .6 g cayenne pepper
- 100 g rusk or bread crumbs
- 1/2 cup ice cold water
Instructions
- Clean your meat of any silver skin, sinew, arteries and cut into small strips or cubes. Place in the freezer for an hour or until the temp reaches 32f – 34F.
- Prepare all of your seasonings and clean and rehydrate your casings
- Grind your very chilled meat on a course plate 10mm then regrind on a medium or fine plate (it's up to you) Just make sure to rechill your meat after your first grind.
- Add your seasonings, the rusk, and ice cold water to your mince meat and mix till it becomes very tacky. If you grab a small handful it will stick to your hand if you hold your hand upside down.
- Stuff your mince meat into the rehydrated and well rinsed casings, link, and prick out any air pockets.
- Cook and enjoy with mashed potatoes and onion gravy
Onion Gravy
Ingredients
- 2 tbps butter
- 150 g onion thinly sliced
- 1 teaspoons brown sugar
- 1/4 cup red wine
- 1/4 tsp fresh thyme leaves
- 1 cup beef broth
- 1/2 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
- 1/4 tsp mustard powder
Add this at the very end of the cooking process
- 1.5 tsp balsamic vinegar
- 1.5 tsp cornstarch dissolved in 1 tablespoon water
- 1 tablespoon cold unsalted butter add this at the end
Instructions
- In a saucepan melt the butter and add the sliced onions and the sugar. Over a medium heat slowly cook till the onions begin to caramelize.
- Once your onions have taken on a beautiful golden color add the wine and bring to a simmer. Simmer for 10 minutes
- Next add the rest of the ingredients (except the vinegar, corn starch slurry, and the 1 tbsp of butter). Lower the heat to low and cook covered for 15 minutes to 20 minutes.
- After you sauce has cooked for 15-20 minutes add the vinegar and corn starch slurry and stir till your mixture begins to thicken. Once thickened add the 1 tbsp of cold butter and stir till fully dissolved.
- Enjoy
The onion gravy recipe is as adaptation from the Daring Gourmet and the Creamy Mashed Potatoes recipe is an adaptation from Alton Brown.
Creamy Mashed Potatoes
Ingredients
- 3 pounds russet potatoes peeled
- 1/4 cup heavy cream
- 1/4 cup milk
- 1 stick unsalted butter
- 1.5 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
- 1/2 teaspoon garlic salt
- 2 egg yolk
Instructions
- boil peeled potatoes till soft and tender
- run the potatoes through a potato ricer and combine with the rest of the ingredients.
- mix well to combine. You can use a kitchen aid mixer with the paddle attachment or cake beaters to make this step easier.
- Enjoy
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This is great. My English upbringing has some variants on the above. The sausages can benefit from a little parsley in the recipe.
The gravy, although I hate to say it, Jamie Oliver’s “get ahead Christmas gravy” does give great results comparable to the best English countryside pub meals.
My mash variation is a bit North England/Scotland which retains the potato skins, mashed roughly simply with lots of butter and wholegrain mustard.
Hi Eric. I made this a month ago (the bangers themselves, using leftover mashed potatoes and chicken gravy) and my wife and son really loved it.
I’m making it again today, this time to include your onion gravy and potatoes recipe.
One question – the video and the instructions differ in that in the video, you added all the ingredients (less rusk) to the meat/fat prior to chilling and grinding. But your instructions state to add the seasonings, rusk and water to the fully ground meat and mix in at that point.
I assume both methods work (I don’t recall which I followed last month), but is one method preferred over the other?
Thanks!
You are correct, either way work but I find that adding the spices and rusk to the already ground meat to be easier (IMO).