Sausage and Potato Packet

The sausage and potato packet is my choice for “the dish of the day” at IHCC, from Jacques Pepin’s Fast Food my Way. (Don’t forget to see selections of other home cooks’ dish of the day at IHCC.) Baking a stew in an aluminum foil is seriously appealing because there is no cleanup involved. Perfect for lazy summer days when the day is long and the time for cooking and cleaning in the kitchen swindles. Pepin also recommends this dish for a winter picnic. You can serve this for lunch or dinner, or as a main or side dish. It’s extremely versatile.Ingredient list is short and they are mostly stocked items in your pantry: potatoes, onion, garlic or sausages. I like to use red onions, unpeeled small potatoes and Italian hot sausages. Anything you have on hand should do as long as they are cut to sizes that would be cooked evenly in the oven. When unexpected guests show up for dinner, this dish can be easily put together. No advance preparation is needed. Assemble all the ingredients raw, wrapped in foil, then bake. Serve it with some grains and a green salad, you’d have a big-flavor dinner on the table with minimum effort.

I’ve prepared this dish repeatedly; it never disappoints. It takes an hour of baking in the oven at high temperature (425°F). The aroma wafting through the kitchen, not to mention the taste of it, would satisfy the most discerning palette. I have been getting bundles of red and yellow onions from the farmers’ market. The juicy, deep flavor of the stewed onion is what I consider as the star and best bite of this dish. Enormously comforting and delectable. I would pack in more onion that this recipe calls for; I can never get enough of the stewed onion. I may go further and change the name of this dish to: Sausage, potato and onion packet.

Don’t skip the fresh rosemary in the packet. The intensely earthy, herbaceous aroma of rosemary permeates the air in the kitchen when the packet is being baked. The kitchen becomes that luring, welcoming hub I always want it to be.