Nigel Slater’s kitchen diary: haricot beans and sausages

Photographs Jonathan Lovekin

Bonfire Night is very often the last dinner we eat outside. Not on a plate at the garden table, but standing up, staring into the night sky, eating from deep bowls that warm our hands. A soup perhaps, or a slow-cooked casserole, something sustaining to be eaten with a spoon in the cold evening air.

It wouldn’t be Bonfire Night, Guy Fawkes, call it what you will, without a sausage. I serve them with leeks, beans and bacon and seasoned with tarragon and parsley. A recipe that can be kept warm to fit in with the entertainment or even reheated the following day, as you clear up the dead Roman candles from the flower beds.

You cannot hurry a sausage. Few things are more worth taking your time over than cooking a plump, coarse-textured butcher’s sausage, turning it over in the pan, watching it gradually burnish to deepest golden brown. A good sausage is a sticky sausage, one that has been allowed to take its time frying to perfection.

This week marks the depths of autumn, the moment when I light the fires, maybe even finally put the heating on. It is also a very fine time for food. Pumpkins and nuts, mussels and leeks, figs and early citrus are all worth looking out for. You may never want to see another pumpkin for a while after Halloween, but they do make the best soup of all, particularly if you include a bit of bacon when you fry the onions.

This has also been the week of snuggling up with a book and a slice of cake. The pile on my desk (books, not cakes) includes everything from contemporary food culture (Ruby Tandoh’s All Consuming) to companion planting (What Grows Together by Jamie Butterworth) and a study of Georgian dining (Insatiable Appetites by Peter Ross).

The excitement of fireworks and bonfires used to coincide with buying toffee apples from the greengrocer’s with my pocket money. Nowadays, I prefer to caramelise the apples on the hob with a little maple syrup and honey, then tip them over ice-cream.

This year I am going one better: the hot apples, glistening with sugar syrup, are to be poured over a dish of crisp meringues under a layer of custard, a sort of toffee-apple-meets-custard affair.

Serves 2. Ready in 45 minutes.

This is the sort of good-natured dish you can make in advance of any Bonfire Night celebrations and reheat at the last minute when you cook the sausages. The recipe can be easily multiplied for a crowd. If you prefer, you could cook the sausages, then cut them into short pieces and stir them into the leeks and beans.

Cooking the leeks under a hat of greaseproof paper will encourage them to steam rather than fry, so you end up with a sweet tangle of soft leeks. If you don’t have cannellini beans, use haricot or butter beans, either from a tin or, better I think, from a jar. If you cook your own from dried, make sure to simmer them until they are slightly softer than usual; extreme comfort eating for a cold night outdoors watching the fireworks.

olive oil 2 tbsp
plump pork sausages 400g
bacon or pancetta 4 rashers
leeks 3, medium
butter 30g
water 100ml
tarragon 10g, fresh
vegetable stock 250ml
haricot or cannellini beans 1 x 400g tin
parsley a handful, chopped

Warm the olive oil in a frying pan and brown the sausages on all sides. Turn them regularly so they cook evenly and develop a rich, mahogany-brown exterior. I suggest you take your time over this, checking their progress regularly. As they start to colour appetisingly, snip the bacon or pancetta into small pieces and add to the sausages.

Cut the leeks into thick rounds and wash them well in a colander or cold running water. (Grit and sand can get trapped between the layers, so it is worth washing them thoroughly.)

Put the butter and water in a deep saucepan and bring to the boil, then add the leeks.

Pull the tarragon leaves from their stems and add to the leeks together with a good seasoning of salt and pepper. Tear a piece of greaseproof paper or baking parchment to roughly fit on top of the leeks, then tuck it over them and cover the pan with a lid. Leave the leeks to cook for 8-10 minutes until they are soft but not browned.

Pour the vegetable stock over the leeks and continue to cook for 3 or 4 minutes, then carefully blend until smooth, either with a stick blender or in a blender jug.

Return the blended purée to the pan over a moderate heat. Drain and rinse the beans, then stir into the purée and continue to simmer.

Chop the parsley and add to the beans and purée and correct the seasoning with salt and pepper. Divide between 2 shallow bowls or plates and place the sausages and bacon on top.