A recipe from Grandma that is somewhat like a cassoulet but if you made this for a French person they’d probably spit in your face. When it comes to food ‘authenticity’ is not only limiting it’s ultimately a foolish notion, especially as it seems to be applied with particular fervour to peasant cuisines, which are inherently improvisatory and uncodifiable.
Anyway! We call it ‘the sausage and bean thing’ and we love it;
Firstly, you need to cook the sausages until they’re just starting to brown, you can fry them in the pan you’re going to cook the whole dish in or bake them separately in the oven. We opt for bake, it’s easier and causes less mess than frying. You don’t want to cook the sausages through, just long enough to give them a nice colour. Remove them from the pan (or oven) and set them aside to cool slightly.
Heat a glug of olive oil in a heavy-based pan and add the chopped onions, chopped garlic and dried sage. Cook the onions until soft but don’t let them brown.
Chop your chorizo into bite-sized chunks and add to the onions, cooking it until the juices have coloured the entire pan.
Pour over the chopped tomatoes, rinse the tin with a little water and add his to the pan also. Stir in the tomato paste and sprinkle in the smoked paprika (be generous with it).
Leave the sauce to simmer and thicken slightly while you cut the part cooked sausage into fat coins. The longer you’ve left the sausage to cool the easier this will be.
Add the chopped sausage to the pan and still to combine. Simmer until the sauce has thickened to a consistency you prefer and add the drained beans and chopped parsley when you’re ready to serve.
You can serve this on it’s on with just some nice bread. We’ve also served it with couscous which is nice but the best way to serve it (the way Grandma would serve it) is over a baked potato that has been split open and the filling mashed slightly with a knob of butter and a sprinkling of parmesan cheese!
Serves: 4
6 good quality pork sausages
250g cooking chorizo*
1 teaspoon dried sage
1 onion, diced
2 gloves garlic, chopped
1 x tin chopped tomatoes
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1 teaspoon smoked paprika
1 x tin cannellini beans
1 x bunch parsley, chopped
* We use the small linked sausage that look like …erm anal beads