The poor old cabbage. It’s got itself a bit of a bad name, hasn’t it? Probably all those memories of terrible school dinners, when it was boiled for hours and hours before being inflicted on us poor suffering children.

It’s completely undeserved of course. Savoy cabbage in particular is a wonderful vegetable and is at its best during the cold winter months. It is quite different from the white or green cabbage and, in my opinion, is far tastier.

The beauty of savoy cabbage is that it doesn’t need dressing up in fancy recipes to make it interesting. For an easy side dish, steam some chopped savoy for a few minutes and then serve with a knob of butter, salt and pepper.

Or how about this simple sausage and cabbage bake? It might not sound at first like a culinary delight and, no it’s not the prettiest dish, but trust me. Once you’ve tried it, you’ll make it again and again.

It’s based on a recipe by Tamasin Day-Lewis, who in turn got the recipe from Jane Grigson. They serve theirs with mashed potato but I’ve added sliced potato to my version to create a fantastic one-pot supper, perfect at the end of a hectic day of work and school.

Please buy the best quality sausages you can afford for this dish, ones with a good high meat content. Cheap sausages just aren’t worth bothering with.

Sausage and cabbage bake

Butter
1 large savoy cabbage, cored and shredded
8 potatoes, peeled and thinly sliced
8 fat pork sausages
Salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to 180°C/gas 4.

Lightly butter a large overproof dish – one that has a lid.

Bring a large panful of salted water to the boil and cook the cabbage and potatoes quickly for five minutes until just tender. Drain and run under cold water to stop any further cooking.

Slit the sausage skins lengthways with a sharp knife and squeeze out the sausage meat. My youngest daughter likes to help me with this job.

Place a layer of cabbage and potatoes at the bottom of the ovenproof dish and season with salt and pepper. Cover this with a layer of sausagemeat. Repeat to use all the meat and vegetables, ending with a layer of cabbage and potato.

Fleck the top with butter. Cover with greaseproof paper and then the lid.

Bake for 40-45 minutes, until the vegetables are tender and the top is browned and crispy.

I am entering my sausage and cabbage bake into the In Season Challenge, set by Carol over at Make It, Bake It. Her challenge this month is to come up with a recipe featuring savoy cabbage, so of course this seemed to me the perfect dish.

If you’ve got a favourite savoy cabbage recipe, you should enter the challenge too. But there isn’t long – the deadline is 5 February 2012.