Let’s get our Irish on! No, I’m not talking about the beloved, by some, University of Notre Dame…I’m talking about my Irish heritage. My mother is big into genealogy, and has found through various sources that way back when, my family came over to America from that beloved country, Ireland. While I’ve never had the chance to visit in person, though I would love to some day, I try to keep our Irish heritage alive and active in our lives! Our two boys are still young, and don’t quite understand what heritage is yet…they hardly understand that mommy has a mommy!!
A few weeks ago we celebrated one of my husband’s favorite holidays, St. Patrick’s Day! He came home from work only to find myself and our boys buried in a heap of toys while watching Curious George on Netflix! Did any of us have a stitch of green on? NO!! So needless to say our boys had their first lesson on what not to do on this holiday. We promptly all went and put something green on, and went off to the store to get all the fixings for Bangers & Mash.
Now, I must explain that one of my passions in life is cooking. I LOVE to try new things, present them, and my ultimate high is when I can totally surprise my family with a new dish that everyone loves!! My husband loves utilizing this passion of mine. He is constantly finding recipes for dishes that he would like to try, and I have to admit, they are not always the easiest of recipes to do! So when he came home wanting some Bangers & Mash, my heart sunk. From past experience, I just knew this recipe was going to be complicated and we’d be up all night trying to figure out how to do the next step, and by the time the meal would be done, we would be too tired to eat!
Much to my surprise, this recipe was super easy! Please be mindful that I tweaked it a bit…as I usually do! With that said, the recipe only took about 45 minutes to prepare and we had a delicious dinner at a reasonable time in the evening! This has become one of my favorite recipes to make, and I had the pleasure of presenting it to my parents and my husband’s grandmother (my kids refer to her as GG) last weekend! My father absolutely loved the dish, while my mom and GG were just a little unsure about all the new flavors they were experiencing. As a sign of success though…there were no leftovers in our refrigerator! Ok, I’ll admit I had one helping that I pulled aside for the hubby’s lunch the next day…but everything else was gone!
Bangers & Mash
1 pkg Brats (we used beer brats, but use your favorite!)
1 lg white onion
2 tb butter
1 bottle beer (we used Guinness, but whatever is on hand should work)
1 tbsp flour
2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
1/2 cup beef stock
2 lbs red potatoes, skinned
2 tbsp butter
3-4 tbsp milk
1 tbsp whole-grain mustard
3/4 cup shredded cheese
1. Thaw the brats either in the microwave, or we parboiled them in a pot with beer for about 10 minutes, making sure the beer does come to a rolling boil.
2. Chop up your potatoes and start boiling them.
3. Slice the whole onion into strips, bigger strips usually work better.
4. While the potatoes are boiling, melt some butter in a skillet, then place the brats in the skillet, and let them brown on the outside. Keep the beer that the brats were parboiling in. This usually takes about 5-10 minutes. Throw the onions in with the brats and let them simmer for about 5 minutes.
5. Pour the left over beer in with the brats and onions. Allow it to come up to a boil once again. This should take another 5-10 minutes.
6. In a separate dish, remove the brats and onions. I usually place this dish into a warm oven.
7. Let the beer simmer in the skillet. In a separate dish, mix the melted butter and flour together. As you stir this will become very thick. Combine this flour/butter mixture with the simmering beer. This will make the beer thicken up almost immediately. Add the Worcestershire sauce to the mix. Make sure to constantly stir the mixture in the skillet so that it doesn’t burn. Slowly the mixture will become more thick, and start to look like gravy. If it becomes too thick, you can use the beef stock to thin it to your desired consistency.
8. Take the potatoes off the stove when they are soft and mash them, adding the milk, butter, mustard and cheese.
9. Serve the bangers and onions over the mash!
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