Vienna Sausage Wrapped With Bacon, Home-Made Onion Rings, Potato Salad

After writing my post on pizza yesterday, I was inspired to turn what would have been typical British pub fare of "bangers and mash" (ie sausage with mash potato) to a more creative dinner meal.

I was watching Scandinavian Cooking on the Asian Food Channel ("AFC") the night before and decided to try the bacon wrap on Vienna sausage. Ideally, streaky bacon would have been the best option for a wrap as the pieces are longer. However, I chose to use smoked back bacon as the meat was leaner. It was my little compromise on an otherwise not very healthy meal (but taste oh so good....).

To accompany the sausages, I experimented with home-made onion rings, again inspired by another program called Restaurant Makeover on AFC (by now you would have guessed I'm a big fan of AFC). I was looking forward to trying out the homemade version as you could only taste the batter and not the onion in the commercial frozen onion rings. I also made Tracy's yummy potato salad but had to make some adjustments as I didn't have cream in my fridge. Last, but not least, a simple salad to ease my guilty "healthy" conscience.

The Main...
Wrap 2 pieces of bacon (streaky or smoked back bacon, depending on your preference) over the sausage (take your pick - Vienna, Hungarian, Pepper, Garlic, Chorizo, etc, etc). Secure the wrap with a small toothpick. Pan fry until it is done. Serve with mustard of your choice, tabasco sauce or home-made thai style green chili sauce (something we picked up from our 18 months in Bangkok).

The Side Dishes...
Potato Salad
Click above to see Tracy's recipe from her Makanning blog. I substituted cream with milk as I didn't have any cream at home. To add some richness to the sauce, I added a slice of cheddar cheese into the milk. Otherwise, I followed her recipe to the T.

Onion Rings with Beer Batter
1 cup self raising flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup beer
1 egg

Whisk the ingredients until the batter is smooth. I also added the excess sauce from the potato salad to the batter. (As the taste is fairly consistent, why waste?) Slice the onions into rings. Dip the onion ring into the batter and deep-fry in hot vegetable oil. The trick is not to move the onion ring immediately after placing into the wok (I'm Chinese so I like to use the wok) or pan. This enables the batter to stick to the onion. When it is golden brown, use a chopstick or a tong to turn the onion ring over. Remove the onion ring and place on a plate with layers of paper towel to soak excess oil. Be careful not to burn the kitchen down as paper towels are flammable. I placed the plate too close to the burner and the towel caught fire when the a gust of wind blew the flame! Lesson learnt...

Simple Garden Salad (for 2)
Slice cucumber, tomato, capsicum, red onion (1 of each) and fresh basil. Combine ingredients into a salad bowl. Just before serving, toss with 3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil and 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar dressing (Rule of thumb - 1 part vinegar, 3 parts oil). Season with pepper and salt.

The Results...

The plate was too full for me to find space for the potato salad. Hence 2 different pictures. Hubby, who is a huge sausage fan absolutely loved dinner last night!