It is the perfect time to embrace a national treasure, the humble sausage

We are blessed here with butchers who take massive pride in their sausages and we should support their efforts at any opportunity. One of my favourite ways to enjoy them is in a good old fashioned sausage roll. My friend Trudy has recently opened a restaurant in the lovely new Courthouse space in Bushmills. It’s an art and retail space with a super shop that stocks local artisan food products and art and craft from local artists. When I called in last week she had a display of sausage rolls ( alongside her cinnamon sourdough swirls which would be worth a trip alone) that had vegetable roll in them. This is a genius move. Vegetable roll is one of our best culinary assets – good beef sausage meat combined with fresh vegetables. It was something that regularly made a welcome appearance on the table when I was growing up and one I continue to love. The recipe here is inspired by Trudy’s sausage rolls and is served with rumbledethumps – a turnip, potato and cabbage dish. We tend to have sausage rolls as a snack now but I love them as a centrepiece main course. The combination of vegetable roll, sausage, some onion and leek, encased in buttery pastry, alongside a cherished side, is hard to resist. Brown sauce totally optional….

Sausage comes from the French word saussiche and from the Latin word salsus meaning salted. While we tend towards fresh sausages in this country, in Italy most sausages are cured with salt and called salamis. The word derives from sale meaning salt. In the recipe here chopped salami is added to sausage meat to make a stuffing for breast of lamb. This cheap cut of meat is delicious and perfect for slow cooking. The stuffed breast is cooked with carrots and onions which provide the vegetable and the accompanying sauce. Carrots are at their best now – sweet and delicious and are superb when they soak up the cooking juices in this dish. For a vegetable overload I’d also recommend serving the rumbledethumps with this dish or alternatively a big bowl of buttered Queens….