Raglan Road - Dalkey Duo

This week's Sunday paper had a coupon for cocktail sausages, so of course my mind immediately went to the Dalkey Duo recipe I had been wanting to try.  I have dined at the Raglan Road restaurant at Walt Disney World's Downtown Disney area twice... and I have had the Dalkey Duo... twice :)

The restaurant has a lovely Irish Pub theme and if you dine late enough, there is live Irish music and Irish dancing.  It is very entertaining.  The food is good too. 

I love trying different kinds of beer, so it is nice that they offer a "flight" of beers (actually, several different flights).  That beer tastes mighty fine with this deep fried sausage appetizer. 

Here is the Dalkey Duo in all of its glory:

I love how they present some of the sausages on the forks, and then put extras on the side in a bowl.   It is hard to see here, but there is a little container of mustard sauce in between the bowl and the forks.

I wondered what the word Dalkey meant... was it a type of cooking method or something?  Nope.  It is a town in Ireland.

So, having gotten over my deep-frying fear when I made the Honey Sesame Chicken, I was eager to try this at home.  It is really quite a simple recipe.  Please note that yesterday I finally ordered a new camera, so the next update of this blog will have gorgeous pictures (I'm sure!).  For this one we will have suffer through with shots from my cell phone camera.

First, I began heating my canola oil in a big pot. This should get to about 350 degrees before you start cooking the sausages and it takes a bit of time to get to temperature.

Then, I blended 1 3/4 cups regular flour with 1/2 cup corn flour (masa).

Here is the flour:

And the masa:

Mixed together:

The I add the wet ingredients, 1 1/4 T of whole grain mustard mixed with 1/2 cup of lager.   At least, that is what the recipe said to do. 

Unfortunately, that small amount of liquid mixed with the flour resulted in a paste-like consistancy.  Not what we are looking for in a batter.  So, I ended up pouring about 12 oz of lager into the flour ... just enough to get a pancake-like batter. 

I added a bit of salt and pepper and then started preparing the sausages.  I used Hillshire Farms Lit'l Smokies beef smoked sausages for this recipe (Because that's what my coupon was for!).  The prep couldn't be more simple.  Just coat the sausages with flour.

Then you shake off the excess flour, coat in the batter, and (carefully) place the sausages in the hot oil.

While these sizzled away, I made the delicious mustard dipping sauce.  Now, the name of the dipping sauce is kind of misleading, because the sauce has more mayo in it than mustard, but I guess mayonaisse dipping sauce doesn't sound as appealing.   So, I put 10 T of (light) mayo (ha!) and 7 1/2 T of whole grain mustard in a bowl.  Added the juice of half a lime, a bit of salt and pepper and stirred it up.  Yum.

 

At this point, the sausages had browned up and I drained them on a plate lined with paper towels.

Then they were ready to eat!

I stuck them on forks as an homage to the restaurant's presentation. 

So, how did they turn out?  They were pretty good.  The batter seemed a little bit soft, so maybe I should have left them in the oil a tad longer.  Also, the sausages I used were small in comparison to the thickness of the batter.  I think that it would have been more like the original if I had used bigger cocktail sausages. 

However, they did taste good and the dipping sauce was delicious.  It makes a lot of sausages, and even with just a salad on the side this was a pretty decadent meal. 

We had a lot of sausages leftover, so I put the extras in a baggie with a paper towel (to absorb any moisture).  Two nights later I decided to heat them up in the oven... on a metal cooling rack placed over a baking sheet... so the heat goes all the way around the sausages.  And guess what.  They tasted better than the first night.  They were nice and crispy and the dipping sauce benefited from having time for the flavors to meld in the refridgerator. 

So, knowing how well they reheated, I think that this is a great dish to serve at a party.  Do the bulk of the work the day before, then just reheat on the baking sheet/cooling rack combo for about 10 minutes before you want to serve.  Perfect!

Raglan Road charges about $10.50 for this appetizer meant for two.  After buying the sausages, mustard and beer I probably spent about $5 (plus pantry items).  Although I actually had to spend more money since I had to buy a 6 pack of beer.  So, yes mine was cheaper, and I had more sausages, but the restaurant price isn't bad.   And the beer didn't go to waste :)

Oh, and a comment about the beer I used.  I probably should have been authentic and used an Irish lager, but I found Karl Strauss lager in my supermarket and I definitely wanted to buy it.  It is a San Diego beer that is served at Disney's California Adventure park and I have always enjoyed it there.  It is really good.

If you would like to try the Dalkey Duo at Raglan Road at Walt Disney World, or taste a refreshing Karl Strauss beer at Disney's California Adventure, contact me at http://www.kingdomplanners.com/ and I can make it happen :)

Susan