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Sausages Served in Potato Ring
This is a good way to use left over potato.
Whip the potato up with a little milk and season, then press into a ring mold if one possesses such an article; if not, then press into a ring with a spoon, using a buttered dish. Brush with butter and brown in a hot oven if a ring mold is not used; then bake until browned and hot. Slip upon a hot dish and arrange browned sausages in the center. If a ring mold is used it must be buttered also.
A leftover-potato dish that depends on two things: mashed potato stiff enough to hold a shape, and sausages cooked through separately before they go in the middle.
- "A hot oven"Read this as 425-450F. The ring is already cooked potato, so the oven is only setting the surface and heating it through — 20 to 30 minutes is usually enough, less if the potato went in warm.
- Potato consistencyAdd milk sparingly. Leftover mash that has firmed up in the refrigerator holds a piped or spooned ring; anything loose enough to spread will slump in the oven. If in doubt, beat in an egg yolk for structure.
- The ring moldRing molds of this period were shallow circular molds, commonly tinned metal but also earthenware or copper, plain or fluted, used for molded rice, macaroni and potato borders. A modern angel-food or savarin pan does much the same job. Butter it generously and line the bottom with a strip of parchment if you want a clean release.
- UnmoldingLet the baked ring stand five minutes before turning it out, then invert onto the warmed serving dish rather than lifting it. The original directs that the ring be slipped onto a hot dish whichever method is used, so plan on moving it either way.
- The sausagesBrown and cook them fully on their own — fresh pork sausage needs an internal 160F. The center of the ring is a warming station, not a cooking one, and sausage fat draining into the potato is part of the appeal.
- SeasoningThe original says only "season." Leftover mash tastes flat reheated; salt, pepper and a good grating of nutmeg or a spoonful of grated onion are worth adding before molding.
- YieldThe original gives no quantities. As a working estimate, about 4 cups of mashed potato will make a ring for four, with roughly two sausages apiece in the middle.
Potato borders and molded rings were a common device in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century cookery: a way of giving a plain dish a formal outline on the platter, comparable to the French bordure. They appear frequently in domestic-science and economy cookbooks of the period, where yesterday's mash could be turned into something presentable and the well in the center filled with whatever was cheap — sausages, creamed fish, stewed kidneys, a hash. Potatoes were among the cheapest calories available to a household, and molded rings were one of the recurring means of making thrift look deliberate.