One dish closer - One dish closer

My cousin came for dinner a while ago and brought some spoils from Borough markets. Amongst them was a large morcilla sausage (Spanish black pudding) from Brindisa. My invite had been misleading; I'd said I would be “throwing together bits and pieces”, but failed to tell her that these bits and pieces would comprise approximately 6 courses, albeit small ones. Therefore, I very gratefully received the goods, but did not find use for all of them on the night.

Over the last few weeks I have seen the morcilla sitting there and thought that I really ought to do something with it, but knowing it was of a very good quality I wanted to wait until I was ready to do it justice and with this salad I believe I did.

This recipe is inspired by variations on a theme which I have tried in a number of different restaurants. All of them have had egg with either chorizo or morcilla, but the best have had all three. The other ingredients are less important, but I found that this combination worked really well.

The measurements should just be used as a guide; you can add more or less of any of the ingredients based on your preferences or what you have available. Salads are by nature a casual affair, so I would positively encourage experimentation.

This recipe serves 4 as a main course.

Ingredients

350g any waxy salad potato (e.g. kipfler or anya)

100ml French vinaigrette (approx)

1 baby gem lettuce (or 1 small cos lettuce)

2 handfuls mixed leaf salad

½ yellow pepper, thinly sliced lengthways

½ red pepper, thinly sliced lengthways

1-2 tomatoes, sliced into eighths

½ small red onion, thinly sliced

4 eggs

200g morcilla (approx 2/3 large morcilla sausage or 2 small morcilla sausages)

200g cooking chorizo (approx 2 chorizo sausages)

½ cup kalamata olives, pitted

Small handful parsley or chives (optional)

Method

Put the potatoes in a saucepan, cover with cold water, add a pinch of salt and put on to boil. At the same time, put another saucepan of water on to boil - this is for the eggs. When the potatoes are done, drain and slice them and put them in a bowl with a spoon or two of the French vinaigrette.

While the potatoes are cooking, cut the baby gem lettuce into strips and toss with the mixed leaves, peppers, tomatoes and red onion, leaving a few strands of onion for garnishing.

When the water for the eggs starts to boil, turn down the heat and gently lower them in. Check your watch or set a timer for 6 minutes. When the eggs are ready, run them under cold water to aid peeling; you may still need to leave them to one side for a bit before peeling them. Once peeled, slice them into quarters. (You could also try the recipe with poached rather than boiled eggs).

Meanwhile, set your oven grill to high (approx 180C), take out the grill plate and line with aluminium foil. Slice the chorizo and morcilla sausages into pieces, approximately 1.5cm thick and arrange on the grill plate. When the grill is hot, put the sausages on a low shelf underneath (the oil tends to splatter which can smoke or catch fire if placed too close). Cook for approximately 3 mins on each side; the chorizo should be quite crisp.

When everything else is ready, pour the remaining dressing over the salad and toss. Distribute the potato and salad evenly across the 4 plates, piling it in the centre. Arrange the sausages and eggs on top of and around the salad. Garnish with the olives, herbs (if you are using them) and the left over onions. Serve immediately.

I found this recipe surprisingly hard to write. The recipe itself is quite straightforward, but getting the timing right if you want the potatoes, sausages and eggs to still be warm can be tricky, and explaining it even more so. Should I say to put the potatoes on to boil and later start a new paragraph explaining what next to do with them? Or is that too long winded? Given that the sausages and eggs take about the same time to cook, which do I suggest starting first? Do I give multiple options for cooking the sausages, or just stick with my preferred method? Is describing how to plate up the dish too prescriptive? Probably, but you don’t have to listen to everything I say!

With regards to the sausages, there are of course a number of other ways you can cook them. Depending on the size of the sausages, you may prefer to cook them whole and slice them afterwards. However, a large morcilla sausage is designed to be sliced before cooking. That doesn’t stop you cooking the chorizo whole, but you won’t get the same crispy quality. The reason I opted for grilling rather than frying the sausages is that the morcilla I was using had a high rice content so it was very soft; I found that it stuck to the base of the pan when I fried it, making it hard to remove from the pan without it falling to pieces.

I hope you find this recipe user-friendly, I tried my best. If not, I would be very grateful for any comments on how I could make it more so.