Rude Aunt Anne

Makes 6 servings (serving a crowd?)

2 lb fresh pork sausage
2 Tablespoons olive oil
1 clove garlic, chopped
1 bay leaf
2 teaspoons Old Bay brand seasoning
½ teaspoons dried coriander
dash salt
¼ teaspoon black pepper
24 oz ale (two 12 oz bottles)
10½ oz beef broth (1 can)
1½ Tablespoons flour
2 medium onions
4 tomatoes
3 carrots
1 red pepper
1 teaspoon caraway seed
12 slices ryebread

Special equipment

an iron cauldron or large heavy stewpot

Method

Cut the sausage into 1½ to 2 inch chunks. Brown with the garlic in the oil in a large cauldron on medium heat. Add spices, ale, and broth, and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to the lowest possible simmer, cover, and cook for an hour.

Before roughly chopping the vegetables, make a roux of the flour and add to the stew so it can have a chance to thicken before the addition of the acidic tomatoes. Add the vegetables and caraway and bring to a boil again. Reduce heat to the barest simmer, cover, and cook for another hour. Serve with a crusty bread.

Notes

When we pronounce the name of the dish with a broad English A instead of a flat American one (say “Rood Ahnt Ahn”), we realize we've stumbled upon another relic of the local saint, Antoine. Ragoût d'Antoine has become Rude Aunt Anne. It's not an uncommonplace happenstance: compare Hindle Wakes from hen de la wake and Finnan Haddie from Findon haddock. That one informant was overheard to call the dish Rude and Bombed surely must be a reference to a personal relative rather than persistence of the legend of the behaviour of the martyr.

Be careful to adjust the seasonings for your particular brand of sausage. The volume of spices listed here is for bland supermarket sausage. Should you use sausage from a local butcher, you'll probably need to reduce the coriander and black pepper. And if your sausage is particularly fatty, you may need to skim the grease.

Our recipe was inspired by a dish called Priest Goulash, reputed to be an Anglicisation of Hungarian gulyás, with the substituion of grain-based beer broth for the Middle European starch of potatoes and dumplings. The parish priest could cook his meal unattended for hours in his oven while he went about his rounds. However, as with Ploughman's Lunch and Shepherd's Pie, Priest Goulash is probably a modern fiction. Goulash (the word and the dish) didn't enter England until the late 19th century: see Ayto and the OED.

Hmmm. The recipe might provide a clue as to why Antoine was murdered rather than carried off by the Fairy Rade: his dish bristles with caraway, a virulent sídhe toxin (“Kümmelbrot, unser Tod!” sing the Fairies, or, in English, “Caraway in the bread, then we're all dead!”). Did the Fair Folk assassinate Antoine before he could massacre more of them? This is the Inn's first ever dish with caraway, sídhe patrons, please take note and care.

Suggestions

Feel free to make the recipe more goulash-ey by substituting true Hungarian paprika for our Old Bay spice. Toy with its ethnic flavour by trying other red pepper spices such as chili powder or tandoori. You could also undo our reverse engineering and return the cauldron (or casserole) to the oven, and bake it there at 325° for two hours rather than simmer it on the stovetop. Perfect for tougher cuts of beef, the long, slow cook will render them soft and tender
First served: Samhain 1993
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Last modified: © October 1993