CiderPunk Cider-Baked Sausages

This is a great recipe and so easy to do. I don't know of anyone who's tried these who hasn't loved them. At Christmas I like to cook a hundred or so cocktail sausages in cider and hand them round in the morning with drinks. They go down a storm.

• Six of the best sausages you can find; don't get fancy flavoured ones, just a basic sausage is best.
• A pint and a half of artisan cider.

There are two ways to approach this. Both ways come out well with minimal effort but are applicable to different circumstances.

The first way is to oven-poach the sausages in the cider. You place the sausages in the baking tray and pour in enough cider to come up to about 1/3 the height of the sausages. Put the tray in a 200°C oven for about 50 mins until the cider has reduced to a sticky syrup. You must turn them regulary; watch out for the steam when you open the oven.

The second way is great for barbecues, and I've even used this approach camping with impressive results. Put the sausages and cider in a saucepan and poach the sausages until cooked. Now transfer to the barbecue (or, indeed, the grille perched over the embers of a camping fire) to crisp and colour the skins. In the meantime reduce the cider the sausages were cooking in to make a sticky cider sauce.

Poaching a sausage in any liquid will soften the skin and outer few millimetres; poaching in cider means that the cider flavour penetrates the sausage too.

Good Times!