Dublin Coddle

Right. This is amazing winter food and is probably about as far from a ‘real and genuine’ Dublin Coddle as you’re likely to get. It's simple, straightforward and invariably stunning.

Order this in Dublin and you’re likely to be confronted with a plate of flaccid Galtee sausages and pale streaky bacon rashers floating in a thick, clear, parsley-dotted gleet that looks like the kind of snot you get when you inhale CS gas.

This is different. It’s dark, rich, multi-layered and wickedly saucy. It's salty and meaty, smoky and deep. Topped with light dumplings that have been grilled off to make the top bit crunchy, served with warm brown soda bread and pats of rich butter, this is a totally original recipe and therefore an Englishman’s take on Coddle.

My advice, chaps? Take the soup...

You can use new potatoes, incidentally, when you can find them. The crushed garlic is flattened on the blade of a knife, not put through a mincing thingy.

Ingredients

• 8 Cumberland sausages
• 8 rashers smoked streaky bacon
• 2 medium onions, chopped
• 1 pint Guinness
• 1 kg potato in 2cm cube
• 4 cloves garlic, crushed
• 2 tbsp chopped parsley
• 1 tbsp plain flour
• 300 ml good stock
• 1 tsp salt

Dumplings

• 100 mg vegetable suet
• 100mg self raising flour
• 2 tsp dried parsley
• Cold water

In a large, covered, frying pan over a medium heat, dry fry the sausages, turning until they are browned on all sides. Reserve to cool, then slice each sausage into four pieces. Cut each of the the rashers into four pieces, and fry them until well cooked, adding a little oil and the chopped onion. Add in the flour and mix it in well to coat everything, then add the Guinness, the stock and the potatoes. Cook on a low, low heat for 40 minutes, then season, uncover and leave to cool until you’re ready to serve.

Mix the suet and flour together, add the parsley and then add the water until a soft dough is formed. When you’re almost ready to serve it up, reheat the coddle and use a cold spoon to form quenelles of dumpling mixture and dump them onto the surface of the mixture. Replace the lid and steam the dumplings on top of the softly bubbling coddle for 20 minutes over a low to medium heat, then fire up the grill and grill off the dumplings until they brown on top.

Serve with mustard on the side, warm soda bread, lashings of cold butter and a massive, rich deep sauvignon. And drink a toast to alexander.