You could probably measure my life in sausages. How I looked forward to the tiny chipolatas and baked beans from a can that my dad would leave in the bottom oven of the Aga for when I came home from school. The plump spiral of Cumberlands I cooked for breakfast every day of my time in the Lake District. The herby butcher’s sausages and rust-red chorizo, the crumbly Bury black puddings, and the soft, blissfully mousse-like Spanish morcilla. And no, I wouldn’t turn my nose at up at a Greggs sausage roll in an emergency.

Chorizo fat can be incredibly good when it is used, blisteringly hot, on a cool, freshly shucked oyster

Chorizo can be a bully. Its paprika-hued fat tends to smother everything in sight. But that fat can be incredibly good when it is used, blisteringly hot and in a few small drops, on a cool, freshly shucked oyster. At once hot, cold, salty and spicy, it is a great mouthful of food. Black pudding, for me an essential element of a full English, makes a characterful filling for a sausage roll, especially with a spoonful of creamy mustard sauce.

A favourite working breakfast in this house is a soft, floury bap filled with grilled black pudding, a dab of mustard and a healthy squirt of mayonnaise. Crumble it over a salad of watercress, russet apples lightly fried and the inner leaves of a little gem lettuce. That chorizo makes a cracking stuffing for a baked potato. Especially when skinned and crushed in a pan, fried, drained of some (but not all) of its oil then mashed into the floury flesh of the baked potato and stuffed back into the crisp skins.

A good butcher’s sausage can be removed from its skin, crumbled and crisped in a frying pan then used as a seasoning. I sometimes scatter the hot herby crumbs over a dish of hummus or into a cream sauce destined for pasta. A spinach salad, the most worthy and dull of them all, can really sing if you add a punchy, mustardy dressing, hot sourdough croutes and sizzling crumbs of sausage straight from the frying pan.

Oysters with chorizo

I love the contrasts here. The salty hit of chilled oyster with the sizzling chorizo and a splash of its hot rust-red oil. Timing is crucial. The hot sausage needs to go into the oyster shells just before you eat. I like to bring the drained chorizo, still hot from the pan, to the table and scatter it over the seafood at the last moment.

Serves 2

cucumber half

chorizo picante 150g (3 sausages)

olive oil 2 tbsp

chives 2 tbsp, chopped

oysters 6

Peel the cucumber and cut in half lengthways. Remove the central core of seeds with a teaspoon then cut the flesh into very small, neat dice. Peel the chorizo then roughly chop the flesh. Warm the olive oil in a shallow pan, add the chorizo and fry until sizzling and lightly toasted. Use a draining spoon to remove the meat from the oil in the pan and scatter over kitchen paper. Reserve the oil.

Open the oysters with an oyster knife and lay them on a serving plate. Toss together the hot chorizo, chilled cucumber and chopped chives.

Spoon a little of the chorizo mixture over each opened oyster then trickle over them a teaspoon, no more, of hot chorizo oil and eat immediately.

Morcilla and apple rolls, mustard sauce

Creamy texture: morcilla and apple rolls, mustard sauce. Photograph: Jonathan Lovekin/The Observer

Use a firmer black pudding if you wish, but Spanish morcilla has a soft, almost creamy texture. Once naked, it will hold good-naturedly in the switched-off oven, covered lightly with foil, until everyone is ready. I recommend a tangle of stingingly piquant sauerkraut at its side.

Serves 6

banana shallots 4

olive oil 4 tbsp

apples 2, medium

butter 40g

morcilla or other soft black pudding 550g

puff pastry 250g

egg 1, beaten

thyme leaves 1 tbsp

fennel seeds 2 tsp

Set the oven at 200C/gas mark 6. Peel the shallots and cut them in half lengthways. Slice off the root and unfurl the layers of shallot. Warm the oil in a shallow pan, then cook them on a low to medium heat, turning from time to time until they are soft and pale gold.

Unfurl the layers of shallot, warm the oil in a shallow pan, then cook the shallots until soft and pale gold

Halve, core and cut the apples into small dice. There is no need to peel them. Melt the butter in the pan in which you cooked the shallots, then add the apples and cook over a sprightly heat until they start to colour. Remove the skins from the morcilla, then crumble the flesh into the apples and mix well.

On a floured board, roll the pastry into a rectangle measuring 40 x 25cm, then transfer to a parchment-lined baking sheet. Spoon half the shallots in a line down the centre of the pastry. Add the apple and morcilla then cover with the remaining shallots.

Brush all four edges of the pastry with some of the beaten egg. Fold the long side of pastry nearest you over the filling for a long sausage and press the edges together firmly to seal. Press the two short edges to seal. Brush the pastry with the remaining beaten egg.

Sprinkle the thyme and fennel over the surface. Pierce four holes along the top of the pastry with a skewer or chopstick. Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.

Bake for 30-40 minutes until deep golden brown and serve with mustard cream sauce (recipe below).

Mustard cream sauce

double cream 4 tbsp

Dijon mustard 3 tbsp to taste

grain mustard 2 tbsp to taste

Warm the cream in a saucepan, stir in the mustards. Season with salt and pepper, then serve with the sausage roll.

mail Nigel at nigel.slater@observer.co.uk or follow him on Twitter @NigelSlater