I’ve got my finger on the pulse with this dish, alright. It’d be best to make it with beans you’ve soaked and cooked yourself, but this speedy version uses tinned beans. If you get good tinned beans the difference is not so great. To make enough for two good-sized portions you will need:
2 x 400g tins red kidney beans in water (drained)
2 medium onions finely chopped
7 cloves of garlic finely chopped
250g dried chorizo sausage sliced
300ml fresh chicken stock
50ml decent* Sherry (I’d use Palo Cortado)
Some olive oil
1.5 teaspoons of dried chilli flakes
A few chopped mint leaves
Fry the onions and garlic in a couple of tablespoons of olive oil at a medium temperature until they begin to colour. Then add the chorizo and fry for a bit longer until the red oil from the sausage colours the onion and garlic. Add the stock, Sherry, chilli flakes and the drained beans to the frying pan. Bring back to a gentle simmer then stir in the mint. It should look a bit sloppy and soupy. Transfer to a shallow oven-proof dish, drizzle some more olive oil on top and bake at 140 Celsius for an hour or until most of the fluid is either evaporated or absorbed by the beans.
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This is a sausagey, beany, garlicky treat of complete pleasure. The kind of thing you can use to generate gas central heating on a cold winter’s night. We are wondering as to whether adding some squid to the recipe might be a fun thing.
*I say decent Sherry but that really applies to all the ingredients I give in these recipes. If you cannot be bothered to use quality ingredients you deserve everything you get, which is to say vermin-grade food. As we know, if it is possible to live it is possible to live well.
Adding squid? Why bother. Have the squid first with parsley, garlic and lemon.
Every french cook is throwing in Chorizo juice in every other dish these days. It’s the trendy ingredient of the year. Unfortunately, it will kill just about any wine (with the exception of perhaps Rioja, you’re old favorite) and sit on your stomach for days. I’m afraid that I have grown to hate it. Nduja on the other hand… Why yes, I think I would! With something big and Amarone like or at the very least ripe and juicy. Or an Italian white?
We didn’t think this dish would really go with wine; you cannot drink Richebourg every day, after all. If I were forced to pair this up with some quality booze action I might suggest Bandol, Collioure or maybe even a full-bodied Chateauneuf. Ah, as I type an idea occurs to me, how about a decent Beaujolais? Really I’d go for some form of refreshing pale ale, though.
You’d like Nduja, Jeremy, keep your eyes peeled for it. It is one of those baroque pieces of craziness that is such a delight to discover.
Perhaps a chilled chinon? I think you need some acid. well not you, David. But the beans thing. As for Jeremy’s observation I agree. Along the same path, if things taste nice why add other things also? That way madness lies. Or at least the combination of scallops and Valrhona. Mind you I have recently salivated over chocolate even more wondrous than Tain’s best.
Glad you enjoyed my recipe, David!
Wow, the great Simon Hopkinson dropping by my little site; I’m honoured! Great recipe, many thanks. I cooked this again last Tuesday and my guest loved it.
Everyone else reading this should get out there and buy Roast Chicken and Other Stories, Second Helpings of Roast Chicken and (my personal favourite) The Prawn Cocktail Years. Mr H explains how to cook so much clearer than me.