Sausage and Borlotti Bean Stew

Borlotti beans and their lovely pink pods

I’m all about the sausage and bean stews.  I love them in the winter and I love them in the summer.  I love them best with a kick of chilli and hunk of crusty bread to mop up the sauce.

I got some lovely borlotti beans in my Home Organics bag this week so I boiled them up – they only take half an hour – and added them to my tomato sauce.  Otherwise, I use tinned beans, usually cannellini.  In a tomato-based stew you can use pretty much whatever bean takes your fancy – tinned borlotti beans, cannellini beans or even chickpeas.  It’s all good.

Well, except maybe kidney beans.  They’re perhaps best left in chilli con carne.  No disrespect intended.

I made a tasty, very quick and simple stew inspired by this recipe and by the lovely Italian Foodie.

What you need for a lovely sausage stew for 2

6 to 8 of your favourite sausages, cut into chunks or rolled into little balls

1 medium white onion, finely diced

1 clove of garlic, finely diced

1 small red chilli, finely chopped

1 x 400g tin of tomatoes (I used a tin of cherry tomatoes because they’re lubbly)

75ml of nice red wine

Salt and Pepper

1 teaspoon of sugar (brown if you have it)

1 x 400g of tinned beans (borlotti or cannellini beans) 

A few leaves of fresh basil, torn

Heat some oil in a large frying pan and cook your sausages until golden brown.  Remove from the pan and set aside on some kitchen towel.

In the same pan (don’t wash it!), fry the onion and garlic for 3 minutes until the onions are translucent.  Add the red chilli and cook for a further 1 minute.

Now add your tin of chopped tomatoes and your splash of red wine.  Season with salt, pepper and a teaspoon of sugar.

Let the sauce simmer away for 15 minutes at least.  Then add back the sausages and add your drained tinned beans.  Finally add your torn basil leaves.  Simmer for another 5 minutes.  Check for seasoning.  It should be lovely and rich and robust, mainly because of all that lovely booze swimming around in the stew.

Serve up with some crusty bread and a splash more of that red wine – this time in your glass.

COOKING TUNE

Amazing tune from Canada’s Austra here, who are playing Dublin’s Crawdaddy this Saturday.  Should be dead good.

Beat And The Pulse – Austra (via The Hype Machine) 

Categories: Dinner

9 Comments

  1. Lovely looking stew! I will have to try this next time if we get those beans again. I boiled mine and tossed in a salad with some rocket and feta, was lovely.

    • This sounds amazing……have never heard of those beans but they look lovely. Must give it a try sometime! x

      • Thanks a mill, Imen! I’d never had the beans fresh before myself, they’re really lovely. Much better than tinned! :)

    • Hey Clare!

      Thanks a mill, your salad sounds lovely too. Looking forward to using our broad beans this week. Planning a broad bean based lunch for tomorrow :)

  2. Hi aoife, have you solved your dilemma with your feta potato cakes or has a foodie genius solved it for you.if not, I may be of help to you and can offer my suggestion.have you considered shredding the potato as for a Jewish potato latkes and deep fry for a crisp finish and golden appearance. Another alternative would be to make like a croquettes style. Or you Follow recipe as for bubble and squeak , either way i would suggest that you steam floury potatoes to make a very dry mash and chill the potato cakes before pan frying and dust with flour also. I hope I’ve been some help to you.

  3. Another wonderful recipe Aoife! This may sound terrible but I’ve never had a sausage and bean stew before but I certainly look forward to trying this one!!

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