Sausage and White Bean Skillet
One pan, twenty-five minutes, and the beans get crushed against the side of it to thicken everything without flour.
The trick here is not an ingredient, it is a spoon. Crushing about a quarter of the beans against the pan releases enough starch to turn the liquid into sauce.
Sausages out of their skins and browned in pieces, rather than whole. More surface, more browning, and it cooks in half the time.
Ingredients
| Amount | Ingredient |
|---|---|
| 1 lb | good pork sausages, skins removed |
| 2 cans | white beans, drained and rinsed |
| 1 | onion, chopped |
| 2 | garlic cloves, sliced |
| 1 cup | chicken stock |
| 1 tsp | fennel seeds, crushed |
| 2 handfuls | kale or spinach, torn |
| — | olive oil, salt, pepper |
Method
- Break the sausage meat into rough lumps in a hot, lightly oiled pan. Leave it alone for three minutes so it browns instead of steaming.
- Turn the pieces, add the onion, and cook until it softens, about six minutes.
- Garlic and fennel seeds in for one minute, no longer.
- Beans and stock in. Simmer eight minutes.
- Crush roughly a quarter of the beans against the side of the pan. The liquid thickens within a minute.
- Greens on top, lid on, three minutes. Salt and pepper at the end, once the stock has reduced.
Notes
- Season last. Stock and sausage are both salty and both concentrate as the pan reduces.
- Cannellini or butter beans. Kidney beans are too firm and stay separate from the sauce.
- It is better reheated the next day, which is unusual for anything with greens in it.
Questions
Vegetarian version?
Leave the sausage out, double the fennel, and brown a chopped fennel bulb in its place. Different dish, same shape.
Can I use dried beans?
Yes, and keep a cup of their cooking liquid to use instead of stock. It thickens better than stock does.
It came out thin.
Crush more beans and give it two minutes uncovered. Flour is not needed and does not help.