Chorizo, as followers of my recipes will know, is one of my standbys, a useful sausage to perk up all manner of things from scrambled egg to pizza. Here it brings its spicy, meatiness to a sausage-meagre stew that is thick with vegetables – onion, mushroom, carrot and tomato – and creamy white beans. The dregs of a bottle of red wine aren’t crucial but certainly enrich the flavours and you will also need stock (or a chicken stock cube). It’s a meal-in-a-bowl, what we used to call a ‘rib-sticker’ eaten with a spoon, crusty bread to wipe the bowl clean. The beans I used, incidentally, were half a jar of French white haricot beans I found at the back of the food cupboard. They and similar Spanish white beans, are bottled in a delicious liquid they’ve been boiled in. If using ‘ordinary’ tinned white beans, I always drain and rinse them because their liquid is not good.
Serves 2
Prep: 20 min
Cook: 40 min
1 large onion
1 tbsp olive oil
100g chorizo
2 large flat mushrooms, 150g
4 tomatoes
2 carrots
250g butcher’s Cumberland sausages
150g red wine
300ml chicken stock
400g cooked white haricot beans
handful flat leaf parsley or coriander
Halve, peel and finely chop the onion. Soften in 1 tbsp olive oil in a spacious frying/sauté pan while you run a sharp knife down the chorizo, peel away the skin and slice about the thickness of a pound coil. Stir the chorizo into the onion and cook, stirring occasionally, as the fat runs. Meanwhile, wipe the mushrooms and cut into big dice. Pour boiling water over the tomatoes, count to 30, drain, remove the skin and chop the flesh. Scrape and trim the carrots. Slice in thin rounds. Cut the sausages into bite-size chunks; I got 5 from each of my sausage. Add the sausages to the pan, increase the heat slightly and brown all over, turning after a couple of minutes a side. Add the mushrooms, toss until shiny. Add the wine and let it bubble up into the sausages, cooking, stirring occasionally, until stick. Add the carrots, tomatoes and stock. Cover the pan and simmer for about 15 minutes until the carrots are tender, the sausage cooked through. Add the beans (drained or not) reheat, check the seasoning and serve with a handful of chopped flat leaf parsley or coriander.