A Winter Meal

For a few weeks now I've been craving a hearty bean and sausage stew.  The problem was that I'd never made a bean and sausage stew. I began combing threw my cookbooks looking for a recipe that fit my idea. I found a  recipe for cassoulet in a cookbook called One Pot French that my mom had given my a few years ago. While the recipes in this cookbook all look fabulous, many of them are too complicated for my taste, and sadly that was the case for the cassoulet. The recipe called for duck fat, 4 pork sauages, 4 veal sausages, 1 large garlic sausage, 4 duck confit legs, pork skin and pork belly. I'm sure the cassoulet would have been beyond delicious, but it was way too over the top for the simple meal for two that I wanted.

So... my search continued.  Luckily, a few days later, the universe threw me a bone.  I came across this recipe on Rachel Eats. While I liked Rachel's recipe much better than the One Pot French recipe, it still wasn't quite what I was looking for and I decided to forge ahead on my own.

Instead of soaking the dry beans, I turned to The America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook (the same cookbook I'd gotten my Thanksgiving turkey recipe from), where I learned I could cook the beans without soaking them first. Here's what the cookbook had to say:

Here in the test kitchen, we were under the impression that beans had to be soaked before cooking to expedite the time on the stove. Sometimes, though, we either don't plan far enough ahead or we forget completely to soak our beans. When faced with a glitch of this kind, do we resort to canned beans or forgo the intended meal completely? The answer is no to both possibilities.  We simply decided to simmer the dried beans that had not been soaked and see what transpired. Much to our surprise, the unsoaked beans only took an average of about 30 minutes longer to cook than soaked beans did. Our unsoaked beans also required more cooking liquid and, admittedly, weren't as evenly cooked, but they were an acceptable alternative, especially when the beans were going to be pureed or mashed.

I boiled my unsoaked cannellini beans in 4 quarts of water for about two hours, slightly longer than the recipe called for, but I found the beans had cooked evenly.  While the beans were cooking, I fried 4 slices of bacon in my dutch oven. When the bacon was cooked, I put them on a paper towel and poured out the remaining bacon grease. I then added the sausages to the dutch oven and cooked them until done, removing them to rest. I added the chopped onion and carrot to the pan with the juices of the bratwurst and let them sautee until tender. I then added one clove of garlic. Once the garlic was cooked (about 30 seconds), I added 1/4 of dry white wine and let it reduce. When the wine had reduced, I added the cooked cannellini beans and the water in which they were cooked to the dutch oven.  I then sliced the bratwurst and crumbled the bacon, adding it to the dutch oven. I also added a bit of chicken stock to keep the dish moist and "stewy".

This dish was very hearty and just what I wanted on a winter night. Ian and I had the leftovers for lunch today, and the flavors were even better. I added a dollop of sour cream to my bowl.

Bean and Sausage Stew

1 lbs cannellini beans
4 quarts of water
4 slices of bacon
3-4 quality sausages of your choice ( I used bratwursts)
1 onion
1 carrot
1 clove of garlic
1/4 dry white wine
chicken stock
salt and pepper to taste