Beer-Braised Sausages with Warm Potato Salad

A perfect one pot meal to make on a night when big wet snowflakes, that melt as soon as they touch the ground, fall from the sky. Oh well, at least dinner was good. I love recipes that have you cook everything in one big pot, there are less dishes to do after dinner!

The flavors in this recipe scream Germany to me, so I was surprised it called for sweet Italian sausages and not bratwurst. It is noted that other sausages such as turkey or chicken work well also. I know the kids like Italian sausage so I stuck with that.

This recipe is from the March 2010 Everyday Food (not sure why it is not online yet.....)

2 T. extra-virgin olive oil

1 1/2 pounds sweet Italian sausages

1 meduim yellow onion, halved and thinly sliced

12 oz pale ale beer

1 1/2 pounds small red potatoes, halved

coarse salt and ground pepper

1 T. red-wine vinegar

2 T. chopped fresh parsley

In a large Dutch oven or heavy pot, heat 1 T. olive oil over medium high heat. Add sausages and cook until brown on all sides, about 8 minutes. Add onion and cook until softened, about 7 minutes. Add beer, potatoes, and 2 cups water; season with salt and pepper and press to submerge potatoes in cooking liquid. Bring to a boil; cover, reduce heat to medium, and cook until potatoes are tender, about 20 minutes.

Transfer sausages to serving platter and keep warm. In a large bowl, stir together 1 T. oil, vinegar, and parsley. With a slotted spoon transfer potato mixture to dressing (reserve cooking liquid) and toss to combine.

Return pot to high heat; boil cooking liquid until reduced to 1 cup, about 12 minutes. Return sausages to pot and cook until heated through, 2 minutes. Place sausages and dressed potatoes on serving platter; drizzle half the sauce over top. Serve with remaining sauce alongside.

I made two changes, one that was unintentional. First I had dill in my herb garden that needed to be harvested so we chopped it up and added it to the dressing for the potatoes, a great addition. My unintended change was the sauce. The picture in the magazine shows a brothy sauce around the food on the plate. I must of reduced it more than called for, because I got a deep brown, thick sauce, that was delicious.

Only my youngest joined us for dinner last night. He loved the sausage, but was not too crazy about the potatoes. The other was sick, poor thing is thankfully on the mend today!