It’s true. Our precious hob cooker is broken, which means certain experimentation is limited and it’s time to get creative with the oven.

Now, I’ve underlined my love for a good sausage casserole in the past, but it’s really more of a winter warmer than something to be tolerated in a summer scorcher. But I had these fine sausages when I barbequed the other day, and everything about their flavour screamed summer! I let the inspiration carry me from there.

Mango Sausage Punch

Ingredients

• 1 Mango
• 2 Scotch Bonnet/Habanero chillies (red, for sweetness)
• A friendly bunch of spring onions (scallions)
• 2-3 cloves of garlic
• 3-4 sweet potatoes
• Half a red cabbage
• About 5 good quality pork sausages
• 1 tin of chopped tomatoes
• 1 chicken stock pot mixed with 300ml boiling water
• 2 tablespoons of tomato puree

Time to get your oven on…

1. Pre-heat your oven to 200c. Place a large casserole dish in there with a little olive oil inside
2. Finely dice your garlic and chillies and chunky chop your spring onions. Keep these to one side.
3. Take your sausages, slice them down the middle and remove the meat to make nice little meat balls with. As previously mentioned, I still had some Chilli, Mango & Pork sausages left over from my barbeque the other evening, but as both chilli and mango go into this recipe, you will be just fine using plain pork if you can’t find these.
   
4. Get your casserole dish from the oven and place your garlicchillionion mix inside. Gently place your sausage balls (yeh) on top and return the dish to the oven for 15 minutes.
   
5. Now to prepare the rest of your veg. Peel and dice your mango into small enough pieces, peel and dice your sweet potatoes into good chunky pieces, and finely slice your cabbage into streamers.
6. After the aforementioned 15 minutes, remove your casserole dish from the oven. Pour the diced mango pieces and all the juices in, and stir together to combine. Return to the oven for 5 minutes. Remove, then pour the contents into a separate bowl. Whack the oven up to 240.
   
7. Now take your potatoes and place them in the bottom of the casserole dish. Put the cabbage on top, and then on top of that put your sausagey mango mix. Finally, pour over the tin of tomatoes and your hotwaterchickenstock. A little seasoning wouldn’t hurt here either- I just went with good old salt and pepper on the potatoes and cabbage. Cover, and return to the oven for 20 minutes.
   
   Gorgeous. Those potatoes and that cabbage are going to boil/steam in those sweet, spicy mango juices.
8. Next, remove the lid, stir in the tomato puree (moving all the contents around as you do) and cook for a further 5 minutes.
   
9. Serve and enjoy. Delicious with green beans!

This could easily be vegetarian, but in this case for the sake of texture I would suggest keeping the mango as big chunks and maybe getting some green pepper involved for a contrast to the subtle sweetness of this dish! Something to consider next time.

Enjoy! x