Sausage and Bean casserole with Chipotle

In the blogging fraternity of which I am a part there has recently been a bit of a surge of interest in cooking with dried beans.

 I still have a few of my home-grown beans left from last year, so I decided to use some to make my own bean-based dish. Of course, I'm not a vegetarian so my dish does have meat in it as well as beans, and I'm a chilli fan too so it also includes some lovely smoky Chipotle. I have to admit that my inspiration for this is derived from blogposts by two fellow bloggers: David Offutt who wrote about Black Beans and Rice with Chipotle Tomato Sauce, and Karen Burns Booth who offered us a Cheat's French Style Cassoulet, and my dish is a combination of some elements of both of these.

Sausage and Bean Casserole with Chipotle

Level of difficulty: Easy.

Ingredients: (serves 2)

• 100g dried beans (I used a mixture - mostly the big white "Coco Blanc à Rames" aka Lazy Housewife. You could just as easily use tinned ones.)
• 1 x 250ml tub of home-made tomato sauce (you could substitute this with a tin of chopped tomatoes)
• 400g good sausages (I used Waitrose own Free Range Lincolnshire Pork ones, but Toulouse ones would have been even better!)
• 6 dried Chipotle chillis (Adjust quantities to taste)
• 2 x medium onions, peeled and chopped
• 2 large cloves of Garlic
• Approx 500ml of good stock (I used chicken stock made from the leftovers of the previous day's roast chicken)
• Salt and Pepper
• Small quantity of vegetable oil for frying

If you haven't tried Chipotle yet, I strongly recommend that you do. The Chipotle is a dried, smoked chilli. It is not hot, but it imparts a wonderful smoky warmth to what ever it is cooked in. You need to re-hydrate them before using them, but please don't discard the water that you use for this, because if you do you will be wasting a lot of flavour. Since the chillis themselves can be a bit fibrous, I tend to use them only as a flavouring ingredient, and I usually leave them whole so that I can fish them out and discard them towards the end of the cooking time.

Yes, they do look like Prunes - but I assure you they taste different!

Method:

• Soak the beans in water for at least 6 hours, drain, and then cook them thoroughly until soft but not mushy (or use tinned ones!)
• Soak the Chipotle in warm water for about an hour. Retain the soaking-water
• Brown the sausages in a frying pan, using a splash of oil. Remove from pan
• In the same pan, cook the onions over a low heat until translucent but not brown
• Crush the garlic into the cooking onions and cook for a further two minutes
• Put sausages and onion/garlic mix into a deep casserole dish
• Add the re-hydrated Chipotles, along with the water in which they were soaked
• Add the stock, beans, tomato sauce and seasoning
• Cook, covered,  in a low oven (I use about 160C) for approx 90 mins, stirring occasionally
• Check the consistency once or twice, adding water if necessary. You are aiming for a sauce that is not too thick and yet not sloppy.
• Immediately before serving, remove the Chipotles, if possible
• Serve with rice, pasta or potatoes, accompanied by a nice fruity red wine!

Note: this is a very tolerant dish. If you fully cook the sausages in the frying-pan rather than just browning them, and use tinned beans and a bit less stock, you could make this dish in about 40 minutes. I prefer to cook it more slowly though. I'm sure it enhances both texture and flavour. And there's something very satisfying about knowing there is a casserole full of lovely things bubbling away gently in the oven, whilst you sip your first glass of wine...