Potato and Bratwurst Salad with Shallot-Mustard Dressing

One of my favourite butchers in New York is Esposito’s in Hell’s Kitchen. You’ll find all manner of meat, poultry and game here, but their specialty is hand-tied links of sausage, which they make in the premises daily— Italian sausages, Spanish-style fresh chorizo, Irish bangers, and Bavarian bratwursts. In this recipe, I paired their bratwurst with baby new potatoes and sweet caramelised shallots, rounded off with tangy vinegar and mustard.

Ingredients
2 lbs [1 kg] Baby New Potatoes
2 tbsp Vegetable Oil
2 lbs [1 kg] Bratwurst sausage, cut into ½-inch-thick pieces
4 Shallots, thinly sliced
3 sprigs Thyme
3 tbsp Vinegar
3 tbsp Spicy Mustard
Salt (to taste)
½ tsp freshly ground Black Pepper
2 tbsp Olive Oil
3 tbsp Chives, chopped into 2-inch long pieces

1. Boil whole, skin-on potatoes in salted water for 10–12 mins, until fork tender. Drain off water and set aside potatoes in a large mixing bowl. 
2. Heat 1 tbsp vegetable oil in a large skillet or frying pan over high heat. Add sausage and brown well on both sides. Remove sausage from pan and set aside in mixing bowl with potatoes. 
3. Heat remaining vegetable oil in pan and add shallots and thyme. Cook for 5–7 mins until golden brown and well caramelised. Lower heat, add vinegar, and let simmer for about a min, scraping any brown bits from the bottom of the pan. Turn off heat, and stir-in mustard. 
4. Discard thyme and transfer shallot mixture to mixing bowl. Add salt, pepper, olive oil, and chives, and toss well. Let the salad sit for at least 40 mins to allow the flavours to steep. Serve at room temperature.

Aromatic Turkey Meatloaf with Caramelised Fennel and Red Onions

Tastey Boy doesn’t really like fennel—he says that it’s a weird vegetable and is averse to it in most forms! I on the other hand, think fennel is remarkably versatile—shaved thin and served raw in a salad or cooked in rustic chunks as a side dish—and lends it’s anise-y scent to fish and poultry beautifully. So to temper TB’s distaste, I hid two whole bulbs in a golden and aromatic turkey meatloaf one night, and he was none the worse for wear. In fact, the caramelized strands added oodles of moisture and texture to the finished dish and he had no compunction wrapping leftovers for lunch the next day and sneaking cold nibblies from the fridge the rest of the week.

Ingredients
1 cup Breadcrumbs
1 cup Milk
3 tbsp Olive Oil
4 cloves Garlic, finely minced
¼ cup Celery, finely chopped
2 large Red Onions, sliced
2 large Fennel bulbs, sliced
2 large Eggs
2 lbs [1 kg] ground Turkey
1 tbsp fresh Thyme
Salt (to taste)
1 tsp Black Pepper

1. Stir together breadcrumbs and milk in a small bowl and let stand for 5 mins. Transfer to a large mixing bowl. 
2. In a large skillet or frying pan, heat 1 tbsp olive oil and sauté garlic and celery over high heat for 3-4 mins until softened. Transfer celery and garlic to the mixing bowl with breadcrumbs mixture. 
3. In the same skillet, heat remaining 2 tbsp olive oil and cook onions and fennel for 7–10 mins, until golden brown and well caramelised. Add onions and fennel to the mixing bowl. 
4. Whisk eggs and add to mixing bowl along with ground turkey, thyme, salt and black pepper, and mix well with your hands to combine all ingredients thoroughly. (Mixture will be fairly moist.) 
5. Place mixture in a baking pan and shape into a roughly 9- by 5-inch rectangular loaf. Cover with foil and bake in a 400ºF [200ºC] pre-heated oven for 1 hour. Remove foil from the baking dish and continue baking uncovered for another 15 mins until the top of the meatloaf is golden. Remove from oven and serve cut into 1-inch thick slices.