Throw it all together, toss it in the oven, and have an amazing supper with Baked Sausages with Leeks, Apples and Cider

Updated on Dec. 26, 2023

Throw everything into a baking dish, put it in the oven, put up your feet and relax, then have a delicious, warming supper.
   This is the rhythm of Baked Sausages with Leeks, Apples and Cider (click for the recipe) from British food writer Diana Henry.
   The dish was astoundingly easy to make. It’s really only the cutting of leeks and apples that require any effort at all.
   The recipe is included in Henry’s book, Pure Simple Cooking, which has dozens of similar recipes using the technique of cutting up ingredients, tossing them together and roasting them in the oven.
   After the arrival of her first baby, Henry no longer had the time to take hours in the kitchen preparing food, and so looked for ways to make things effortless. Pure Simple Cooking’s recipes are a result of that quest.
   We used mild Italian sausages in the dish – Italian sausages are a type of pork sausage as called for in the recipe. Instead of apple cider, we used fresh-pressed apple juice, not from concentrate.
   The recipe says to use a roasting tin (pan), which I’m sure would work well, but I used a 9x13-inch baking dish instead.
   Leeks that have been washed and cut, and apples that have been cored and cut into wedges, are scattered in the pan or baking dish, then the sausages are placed on top. After a drizzle of olive oil, the leeks, apples and sausages are tossed together.
   Butter is cut into small pieces then dotted over the main ingredients, and then cider or apple juice is poured over.
   The dish is baked for 50 minutes to one hour. About 15 minutes before it’s finished baking, wholegrain mustard is spread over the sausages and the dish returned to the oven.
   Serving this dish with mashed potatoes is a good idea – the potatoes soak up all the extra yummy pan juices and cider.