Irish sausage casserole: coddling the family.

Coddle, bluntly, is a loose combination of two types of pig accompanied by onions and potatoes.

It is also an unbeatable winter comfort dish, emitting while cooking warming aromas that will bring them running. 

Coddle: as Irish as James Joyce.

Dice four thick strips of bacon and slice two brown onions into rings and lightly fry them in whatever medium you prefer. Remove. In the same pan, lightly brown four pork sausages. 

Layer the onion and bacon mixture in a casserole with the sausages and the potatoes.  Add a little dried sage, some white pepper and half a cup of chicken stock, just enough to steam the contents of the casserole.

Bake 30 to 45 minutes. Garnish with parsley. Serve with Irish soda bread; or any bread for that matter, you could use a crusty Vienna loaf with that typical not-crumbly but slightly gluey orange-yellow crust which is my current favourite, to mop up the gravy. Red wine? Guinness? Barry's tea?