Sausage Coddle Recipes

DUBLIN CODDLE

Steps:

• Preheat oven to 300ºF.
• Place a large Dutch Oven on the stove, over medium-high heat, and add the diced bacon. Cook until golden brown, about 5 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, remove into a paper towel-lined plate, to soak up the excess grease. Reserve.
• Add the sausages and brown on all sides, about 2 minutes per side. Remove and reserve.
• Discard most of the fat rendered in the pot, leaving just a couple tablespoons. Add the onions and sauté until beginning to brown, 3-4 minutes. You can add a little vegetable oil, if needed. Then, add the garlic and sauté until fragrant, 1-2 minutes.
• Optional: Pour the beer to deglaze the pot, cooking and scraping all the browned bits from the bottom, until almost all evaporated. Remove the onions and reserve.
• Remove the Dutch Oven from the heat.
• Add half the potatoes to the bottom of the pot. Season with black pepper and sprinkle some chopped parsley. Then, add half the onions and top with half the cooked bacon. Repeat with another potato layer seasoned with pepper and parsley, followed by onions and bacon. Finish by layering the sausages, whole or cut into chunks.
• Pour the chicken broth. Bring the pot back to the stove and bring to a boil, over medium-high heat.
• Cover and transfer the pot to the oven. Cook for at least 2 hours (and up to 4 hours), checking every now and then to see if more liquid needs to be added. There should be at least 1 inch of liquid at the bottom of the pot at all times, to prevent burning.
• Taste and season with salt and pepper, if needed.
• Garnish with more parsley and serve!

IRISH CODDLE

Steps:

• Preheat the oven to 300 degrees F.
• Add the bacon to a large Dutch oven and set over medium heat. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the fat renders, about 10 minutes. Add the sausage and increase the heat to medium high. Continue to cook, stirring occasionally, until the bacon and sausage are nicely browned, about 10 more minutes. Remove the pot from the heat and use a slotted spoon to transfer the bacon and sausage to a plate.
• Drain the fat from the pot and return it to medium heat. Add the onions, a pinch of salt and 1/4 cup water. Use a wooden spoon to scrape the brown bits from the bottom and sides of the pot, then sprinkle the onions with 1 tablespoon of the parsley and plenty of black pepper. Layer the bacon and sausage over the onions and sprinkle with 1 tablespoon parsley and more black pepper. Layer the potatoes over the meat and add enough water to submerge everything but the potatoes, about 2 cups. Season the potato layer with a pinch of salt and plenty of black pepper and sprinkle with 1 tablespoon parsley. Bring the liquid to a boil (don't stir!), then cover and transfer to the oven. Bake, checking halfway to add more water if needed, until the onions are very tender and caramelized and the liquid has reduced slightly, about 2 hours.
• Finish with a pour of stout, if using, and a final garnish of the remaining parsley. Serve immediately with soda bread.

DUBLIN CODDLE - IRISH SAUSAGE, BACON, ONION AND POTATO HOTPOT

Steps:

• Peel the potatoes. Cut large ones into three or four pieces: leave smaller ones whole. Finely chop the parsley. Boil the water and in it dissolve the bouillon cube.
• Grill or broil the sausages and bacon long enough to colour them. Be careful not to dry them out! Drain briefly on paper towels. When drained, chop the bacon into one-inch pieces. If you like, chop the sausages into large pieces as well. (Some people prefer to leave them whole.).
• Preheat the oven to 300F / 150°C In a large flameproof heavy pot with a tight lid, start layering the ingredients: onions, bacon, sausages or sausage pieces, potatoes. Season each layer liberally with fresh-ground pepper and the chopped fresh parsley. Continue until the ingredients are used up. Pour the bouillon mixture over the top. On the stove, bring the liquid to a boil. Immediately turn the heat down and cover the pot. (You may like to additionally put a layer of foil underneath the pot lid to help seal it.).
• Put the covered pot in the oven and cook for at least three hours. (Four or five hours won't hurt it.) At the two-hour point, check the pot and add more water if necessary. There should be about an inch of liquid at the bottom of the pot at all times.
• To Serve. Guinness, bottled or draft, goes extremely well with this dish (indeed, adding a little to the pot toward the end of the process wouldn't hurt anything). Another good accompaniment is fresh soda bread, used to mop up the gravy!

TRADITIONAL DUBLIN CODDLE

Steps:

• Place bacon in a large skillet and cook over medium-high heat, turning occasionally, until evenly browned, about 10 minutes. Drain bacon slices on paper towels, reserving grease in the skillet. Slice into big chunky pieces and transfer to a large pot.
• Cook sausages, turning occasionally, in the bacon grease until browned, about 5 minutes; add to the large pot. Cook and stir onion in the same skillet until softened, about 5 minutes. Transfer to the pot.
• Arrange potatoes over onion. Pour in enough water to cover the potatoes. Cover the pot; bring water to a boil. Reduce heat to very low; simmer until potatoes are tender, 1 to 1 hour 30 minutes. Garnish with parsley.