There are more than 300,000 web pages devoted to sausages on the internet. In fact, cyberspace seems to be fascinated with sausages — perhaps it is something to do all those links?

Or perhaps it has more to do with the fact that we all just love sausages. We love them squished inside a sandwich with tomato ketchup and mustard, drowned in buckets of onion gravy, sitting on gooey beds of baked beans, and sinking slowly into casseroles, soups and stews.

But the sausage is inexorably rising upmarket, moving from its cheap and cheerful image as fry-up staple to a proper dinner guest. In a recent survey, 44 per cent of people chose sausages for their evening meal, a rise of 20 per cent over past years. There has also been an increase in trendy restaurants, pubs and cafés devoted to the sausage.

Nicknamed bangers because of their tendency to explode if the skins are not pierced before frying, sausages have come a long way. They even have their own appreciation society, and its 6,000 members are currently abuzz about who will win the award for best banger in the land during British Sausage Week next week (visit www.meatmatters.com for information and membership details).

Never one to slot happily into the promotional calendars of food promoters (surely every week is sausage week?), I refuse to wait until next week to sit down to a meal of very good sausages, grilled until crisp and served with lentils and sweet root vegetables.

Ingredients
Serves 4

Prep: 15 min
Cook: 50 min

1 leek, trimmed
2 carrots, peeled
2 parsnips, peeled
1 tbsp olive oil
200g lentils, rinsed
400g tinned chopped tomatoes
1 litre water
8 good pork or lamb sausages
Sea salt and pepper
2 tbsp roughly chopped parsley

METHOD

Finely slice the leek and finely chop the carrots and parsnips. Heat the olive oil in a frying pan and cook the vegetables for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Add the lentils, tomatoes and water, and cook at a gentle simmer for 40 minutes or until tender, adding more water if necessary to keep it thick and soupy.

Gently fry the sausages in a non-stick frying pan until golden brown, turning occasionally.

Add the sea salt, pepper and parsley to the lentils, stir through, and serve in warmed shallow soup or pasta bowls. Arrange the sausages on top, cut thickly on the diagonal.

www.timesonline.co.uk/foodandwine — for previous recipes from T2

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