Polish baked beans with sausage and bacon in tomato sauce
Large white beans soaked overnight and cooked until tender, then stewed with fried smoked sausage, bacon, onion, tomato paste and passata, with marjoram and allspice. The one-pot dish of Polish milk bars and home kitchens, better on the second day than the first. Six servings, the pot itself goes on the table.
Your own work in that: 20 min.
- Beans soaking 720 min
- Beans cooking 60 min
- Sausage and sauce 20 min
- Stewing 25 min
Step by step
0 / 6 done
The evening before: soak the beans
Pick over the beans, rinse and cover with cold water, three times their volume. Leave 12 hours. In the morning the beans are twice the size; pour the water away.
Ingredients: 500 g large white beans, e.g. butter beans · 2000 ml water · 2 pcs bay leaves · 4 pcs allspice berries
TipSoaking noticeably shortens the cooking, and the beans cook more evenly and are easier to digest. The tomatoes go in only once the beans are soft: acid toughens the skins and stops them softening, so the beans could stay hard despite long stewing.
Three times the water, twelve hours
Cook the beans
Cover the beans with fresh water, add the bay leaves and allspice, bring to the boil, skim the foam and simmer covered about 60 minutes, until tender but whole. Add half the salt in the last 10 minutes. Drain, keeping a cup of the cooking water.
TipBeans are done when you can crush one against the roof of your mouth with your tongue. Still hard after an hour? Keep going and check every 15 minutes: large beans, especially older ones, can need as long as two hours.
An hour, salt at the end, a cup of water kept
Fry the sausage and bacon
Cut the sausage into half-moons, the bacon into dice. In a large pan render the bacon 4 minutes, add the sausage and fry 5 minutes, until browned. Transfer to a plate, leave the fat in the pan.
Ingredients: 400 g smoked Polish sausage · 150 g smoked bacon · 2 pcs onions · 3 cloves garlic · 3 tbsp tomato paste · 500 ml tomato passata · 1 tsp sweet paprika · 1 tbsp dried marjoram · 1 tsp sugar · 1 tsp salt · ½ tsp black pepper
Bacon rendered, sausage browned
Onion, garlic, tomato paste
Soften the diced onion in the fat 5 minutes, add the chopped garlic and paprika, and after half a minute the tomato paste. Fry, stirring, 2 minutes: fried paste loses its raw sharpness and gives deep colour.
Tomato paste fried two minutes
Combine and stew
In a large pot combine the beans, sausage and bacon, the onion mixture, the passata and the cup of bean water. Add the sugar and pepper, taste, and only then add the rest of the salt: the sausage and bacon are salty. Simmer uncovered over low heat 20–25 minutes, stirring now and then, until the sauce thickens and coats the beans.
TipThe sauce should be thick, not soupy. Too thin? Crush a few beans against the side of the pot with a spoon; their starch thickens the rest.
Uncovered, until the sauce coats the beans
Marjoram and serving
Take off the heat, add the marjoram crushed between your palms, stir and rest 5 minutes. Serve with bread. Keeps 4 days in the fridge and thickens; reheat with a splash of water. Freezes very well.
Marjoram at the end, bread beside
Before you start
From tinned beans
No time to soak: 5 tins of 400 g (roughly what 500 g of dried beans gives), drained and rinsed, straight into the sauce. Use a cup of plain water instead of the bean water. Stew 15 minutes, no longer, so they don't fall apart.
Meat-free
Instead of sausage and bacon, 300 g button mushrooms fried in 3 tablespoons of oil and a teaspoon of smoked paprika. The smoked paprika stands in for the cured meat.
Spicier
Half a teaspoon of hot paprika or a chopped chilli added with the onion.
Nutrition
per 100 gStep photos are computer-generated from the recipe.
