Buttermilk Pancakes with Sausage Gravy

This may not look like the most appetizing dish but it tastes amazing. When other people are eating a full English, I never know what to have - I don't like baked beans, or mushrooms, or fried eggs, and am not really that fussed about bacon - which usually leaves me with a sausage sandwich. Sometimes if I am making a cooked breakfast for my boyfriend I want something a bit more substantial, but sausage and toast by itself is a bit dry. I recently came across a recipe for buttermilk pancakes with sausage gravy from The No Waste Meal Planner by Becky Thorn and it's now my go-to recipe when other people want a full English.

Becky's recipe includes sweetcorn in her pancakes but I don't like sweetcorn (I know you're wondering if there is anything I do like!); you could also serve this with fried potatoes or ready-made potato cakes. The sausage gravy is essentially sausage meat in a milky white sauce; it really reminds me of nursery-style comfort food and is just the thing when you've had a few too many the night before!

You need:

100g sausage meat, either from a pack of sausage meat or sausages broken up
half an onion, chopped
25g butter
40g plain flour
400ml milk
salt pepper
freshly ground nutmeg

for the pancakes
3 eggs
150ml buttermilk
180g plain flour
1.5 tsp baking powder

Crumble the sausage meat or break up the sausages and fry along with the onion until browned.

In a small saucepan, melt the butter and stir in the flour and cook for a couple of minutes then add the milk and stir until smooth. Add the sausage and onion and seasoning and simmer until the sauce has thickened.

It doesn't look particularly appetizing at this stage, but trust me!

To make the pancakes, add a little of the buttermilk to the flour and mix to a paste then add the rest of the buttermilk and the eggs, and the baking powder and mix well.

Heat a frying pan and pour in the batter to make pancakes - you will get about 4 out of this quantity, though I made mine quite thick.

For the other half: buttermilk pancakes, sausage patties (made from the same packet of sausage meat) and baked beans.

For me, buttermilk pancakes and sausage gravy - delicious!