Toulouse Sausage Casoulet

This is a variation on the standard recipe, using plain pork sausages. Toulouse sausage is made with 75 percent pork, and is flavoured with wine, garlic, pepper and salt. All these ingredients are present in this dish.

Made with chopped onion, potato, carrot, tomato, plus haricot beans, tomato puree, pork or ham stock, white or red wine, garlic, and two sachets of Bouquet Garni, which is a mixture of Bay leaf, Parsley, Marjoram, Thyme, and Rosemary.

The sausages were cooked and browned first in a saute pan (in a couple of dessert spoonfuls of goose fat), along with the onion. Then the other vegetables were added, along with the garlic, and the contents were  soused in boiling water and the pork stock. Add a standard glass of wine.  Add pre-cooked haricot beans and tomato puree (other beans can be used in addition).Simmered under glass for at least forty-five minutes.

The sachets of bouquet garni were added last, during the final ten minutes, in order not to destroy the flavour. Serve with black pepper. Garnish the dish with some leaves (spinach in this case).

Winter Vegetable Stew with Beetroot and Chilli

Beetroot and chilli? It actually works. I'd already made a borscht earlier in the week, so decided to do something different with some beetroot which needed to be eaten.

Essentially this is a vegetable stew made with carrot and onions, turnip and tomato puree. Plus the diced pieces of beetroot. The vegetables were stir-fried in some sunflower oil. The haricot beans came from a can of baked beans which had been in the fridge for a couple of days.

I added water to the stew, three finger chillies, and some vegetable stock. Allowed to simmer on the hob for about an hour at a low heat under glass, stirring occasionally. Add a little oregano before serving.

Served with half a toasted naan bread, or another flatbread of your choice. Delicious!

Apricot and Chestnut Mushroom Curry

A delicious apricot and mushroom curry, which can also be served as a dressing for chicken pieces.

The ingredients are: three fresh apricots, basmati rice, haricot beans, cashew nuts, red chilli, grated coconut, single cream, cumin, cumin seed,  garam massala, garlic, root ginger, onion, Californian raisins,  turmeric, vegetable stock, and yellow pepper,

A dish such as this would normally be made with dried apricots, but diced fresh apricot works just as well, particulary when paired by raisins, which add sweetness. Destone the apricots, and chop finely. Chop the onion (two small), the chestnut mushrooms (two), and half a yellow pepper. Stir fry in sunflower oil at a high heat until the onion begins to brown.

Add deseeded chilli, root ginger, and three crushed cloves of garlic.Turn the heat down to medium and stir-fry for another three or four minutes. then add boiling water to the pan. Add the haricot beans (half a tin of baked beans will do just fine), a handful of cashew nuts, another handful of the raisins.

Add the spices - a teaspoonful of turmeric, half a teaspoonful each of garam massala and cumin, and a pinch of cumin seed. Simmer for forty-five minutes to an hour at a low heat under glass.

Finally, add a generous cupful of single cream, and a dessert spoonful of ground coconut, and stir together. Simmer for ten minutes, and serve with white basmati rice.

 

Chorizo and Red Onion Cassoulet

Made with red onion, green and yellow peppers, carrot, potato, sugar snap peas, haricot beans, spring onion, chestnut mushrooms, celery, tomato puree, plus ham and vegetable stock.

The onions were stir-fried first, and the rest of the vegetables were added as prepared (chop everything!). I used some oil left over from a jar of grilled peppers, but sunflower oil would be fine. The last thing to be added was the chorizo sausage. Turn down the heat and stir everything together. Cook for fifteen minutes.

Add boiling water to the mix, and stir together. Add the haricot beans (soft), the tomato puree, and the ham and vegetable stocks. Simmer under glass for at least half an hour.

Serve with black pepper, or just as it is.

Pork and Beans

Referred to in a song by Jim Morrison and the Doors ('Back Door Man', written by Willie Dixon), which didn't make much sense to a Brit on first listening. After the start of WW2 baked beans in Britain became just that: baked beans. Before the war tins of beans in the UK were like those in the US - a mixture of pork and beans. The excuse was saving money and making beans cheaper in straightened times. But in Britain we never went back to pork and beans, and plain baked beans has been ever since an important component of the British diet. I always have about eight tins of beans in my kitchen cupboard. 

So I reconstructed pork and beans with some sliced roast pork. A delicious combination. What would you serve it with? Potatoes are the obvious option, which may have been served with the pork and beans on the cattle herding trail in the old West. Boiled, roasted, or even plain hash browns, cooked on the fire. Excellent with black pepper. 

Pork and Beans

Potato Pie with Spicy Vegetables

The filling was chopped brocolli, carrot, spring onion, haricot beans, tomato sauce, fish sauce, chilli, a chicken stock cube, plus pepper. The potato was mixed with some butter, and dusted with paprika and ground pepper.

The spicy vegetables were prepared the day before, when they were served with Pilau rice. Cooled in the fridge overnight. Layered into a roasting tin, and covered with mashed red skinned potatoes (semi-peeled), with a knob of butter added during the mash.

The potato was textured with a fork, sprinkled with paprika and ground white pepper. The pie was cooked in the oven at around 190 deg C, for between 45 and 50 minutes (near the top of the oven), depending on how brown you want the potato crust to be. Served with boiled green peas. 

Potato Pie with Spicy Vegetables

Beef Burger with Beans and Spring Onion

A quick to make and satisfying meal, with simple ingredients. Two quarter pounder beef burgers (bought from Sainsbury's, so not wheat free), with baked beans, chopped raw spring onion, and German or American mustard. Made more interesting by the addition of paprika and basil to the baked beans while heating. 

The burgers were cooked in a saute pan for seven minutes each side at a medium heat, mostly under glass. The burgers contain enough fat to cook in their own juices (as all burgers should, as an invention for the barbecue), so it is not necessary to add oil if the pan is teflon coated. Alternatively, the burgers can be cooked in the oven for about the same time (or until browned) at 180 degrees, turning once.  

Beef Burger with Beans and Spring Onion

Pork Ratatouille

Pork Ratatouille, made with Chantenay carrots,  green peas, haricot beans, aubergine, garlic cloves, tomato, spring onion, tomato passata, ham stock, yellow pepper, green pepper, and some oregano,

The vegetables were prepared first. Everything cut into chunks, with the exception of the peas, garlic cloves, and the carrots. These were boiled first until soft, and then the other vegetables were added to the pot and allowed to simmer under glass for another half an hour. A small amount of tomato passata was added, along with ham stock and a pinch of oregano. 

The pork loin chop was prepared in a ridged griddle pan, and cooked for fifteen minutes each side at a medium, and then low heat (on each side), in its own fat, and mostly covered by a glass lid.  

Simmer the ratatouille for another ten or fifteen minutes before serving with the pork. 

Pork Ratatouille

There is a more or less standardised version of this dish, with aubergine, courgette, tomato and garlic, but the dish is one in which vegetables which are to hand or in season can be used. Which is how I proceeded in this instance. A delicious result!

Another way to make pork ratatouille is to prepare squares of pork loin (boneless of course), stir fry them until golden brown, and to add them to the pot of vegetables with at least half an hour of cooking to go. 

Frittata with Chorizo

Fritatta with chorizo, haricot beans, tomato and onion. Onions fried until golden brown in olive oil, sliced garlic, and chorizo sausage, haricot beans and tomato salsa was added. After ten minutes or so, the scrambled egg was beaten in a dish with a little black pepper, added to the chorizo and other ingredients, and allowed to stand until nearly firm. Then the contents of the pan were moved around until the egg was firm.

Thanks to Lyn P. for the main parameters of this authentically Spanish recipe.

Frittata with Chorizo

Pork and Beans

Served on Genius wheat free bread, The photograph was taken before Genius had production problems in 2015, I was not convinced they had a proper grip on what those problems were (they blamed the bakery, rather than the production process. Though they did talk to me during that period, when I was trying to find out why the quality of their bread had declined). Now, I would make my own wheat free bread.

Cumberland pork sausage (fried or grilled), baked beans in tomato sauce, with white pepper. Served without butter. Not a wheat free meal, since pork sausages usually contain wheat. I used to live close by a supermarket which supplied wheat free sausages. These outlets appear and disappear.

Tinned pork and beans used to be normal before WWII on both sides of the Atlantic. After the war started, baked beans were available as just that in the UK, and in the end became a favourite.

Pork and Beans

Peppered Sausage Stew

Sliced peppered german sausage, chopped onion, potato, haricot beans, tomato puree, chopped red pepper, green chilli. The onion was cooked first in olive oil until golden brown. The chopped potato was added, followed by the peppered sausage. After a few minutes I added the sauce of tomato puree, haricot beans, red pepper and one green chilli.

I sweetened the combo with a dash of a quality cider, though the same result could have been achieved with sliced apple.

Peppered Sausage Stew

Casoulet with Torunska Sausage and Roast Pork

Smoked sausage from Torun, now in Poland, but formerly a German town. One of the old Hanseatic ports on the Vistula river. Lots of paprika and garlic in the sausage, hence not necessary elsewhere in the recipe. It was delicious.

Casoulet with Torunska Sausage and Roast Pork

Swazi Fire Beef Chilli Strips

Beef chilli strips, with potato, onion, haricot beans, tomato paste, spinach and herbs. I added Swazi Fire Chilli Sauce, which has a distinctive flavour (made with garlic and sunflower oil). Served with basmati and wild black rice.

Swazi Fire Beef Chilli Strips

Mushroom and Two Bean Stew

A vegetarian two bean stew. Beans (haricot and pinto) cooked in sesame oil, two green chillies, some harissa paste, paprika, spring onion, chopped onion, chopped mushrooms, chopped tomato, black pepper, and vegetable stock.

Mushroom and Two Bean Stew