Italian Sausage Beans and Greens | Food Wishes

Hello, this is Chef John from foodwishes.com with Italian sausage, beans, and greens. That's right, beans and greens is my favorite Italian recipe that does not involve pasta. And what I'm about to share is my favorite version of beans and greens. So, basically, this recipe just isn't one of my favorites. It's one of my favorite favorites. And to get started, we'll transfer a couple mild Italian sausages into a pan. set over mediumigh heat in which we've drizzled just a touch of olive oil. And before these start cooking, we're going to do something we almost never do, which is take a knife and give these the old poka poka, which is going to allow some of the fat and juices to leak out into the pan, which is going to make the other ingredients we cook in this pan even more flavorful. And what we'll do is cook these sausage for about five or six minutes per side or until we get some nice browning on the surface, as well as our sausage is going to be pretty much cooked through. And by the way, once these get sizzling, feel free to reduce the heat down to medium if you want so the pan doesn't get too too hot. And what we'll do once those sausage are cooked on both sides is remove them to a plate where we will allow them to cool to room temp before we pop them in the fridge until we need them. And then we'll go ahead and transfer a diced onion into it is now a very flavorful pan along with a nice big pinch of salt. And over mediumigh heat, we will cook these stirring until not only do they start to turn translucent, but until they start to take out some color and turn a little bit golden brown or even dark brown in some spots. And yes, some of the color the onions are picking up. There's actually some of that sausage juice that's caramelized onto the bottom of the pan that the moisture in the onions have delazed, which again is one of the reasons we poked them. But anyway, once our onions are looking a little something like this, we will go ahead and season this up with some freshly ground black pepper, a nice big pinch of red chili flakes, some dried oregano, and then three or four cloves of minced garlic. And we will stir all this together and then decide if we need some more olive oil, which we almost always do. Okay, a good amount of olive oil is key to this dish. But the reason we don't add a lot at the beginning is because you're never quite sure how much fat's going to come out of the sausage, which for me wasn't a lot. So, I went ahead and drizzled some in. And we'll continue to cook this during about 30 seconds to a minute. And once that's been accomplished, we will carefully transfer in four cups of chicken broth. And we'll want to raise our heat to high since we want this to come up to a boil. And we'll give that a quick stir just for fun mostly. And once our cooking liquids are bubbling enthusiastically, we will transfer in two cans of beans, which I've drained but not rinsed. And I'm using Great Northern beans, but literally any bean you like will work. So, you decide. I mean, you guys are after all the Draymond greens of which beans go with the greens. But no matter what you use, once we stir those in, we'll reduce our heat to medium high. And we will let this cook and simmer and reduce for about 15 minutes, which is the perfect amount of time to prep our greens and slice our sausage. And while any brazing green will work for me, a nice big head of escroll is the best choice. And what we'll do is trim a little bit off the bottom. And then we'll start slicing every/ inch or so. And if you have a little bit of the core at the bottom, that's fine. We'll just cut that in a couple pieces. And then what we'll do once the leaves have been cut into nice thick ribbons is sort of turn a handful at a time and slice the other way so that we get some nice spoonable sized pieces. Oh, and pro tip here. Do not start chopping until your other hand's out of the way, unless of course you want a trip to the ER to be part of your day. And once our escrow has been cut up as shown, we'll go ahead and transfer that into a bowl and we will wash it thoroughly with some nice fresh cold water and then drain it and rinse it thoroughly. And then we'll simply let it sit in our strainer until it's ready to use. At which point we can go ahead and grab our sausage from earlier and proceed to slice that up, which I'm going to do in about quarter inch slices, which I think is ideal. But again, you cut those how you want. Although when you do decide on a size, try to stick with it. So the pieces are nice and consistent. And once those have been cut, we'll go ahead and transfer those into our brothy bean mixture, which as you know has been cooking for about 15 minutes now. And as you can see, it's definitely reduced down a bit. And what we'll do is stir that sausage in and reduce our heat to medium. And we will let that simmer, stirring occasionally for about 10 minutes. Oh, and if you want, when you go to stir this, you can always smash a few of the beans against the bottom of the pan, which is going to produce a little thicker and a little creamier texture. So, personally, I do like to bash up a bunch of the beans. But either way, once that's cooked for about 10 minutes, we will raise our heat back up to high to bring this up to a more enthusiastic simmer, at which point we'll transfer in our greens. And we'll take some tongs and settle those down. And once that escrow has slumped and softened, we will simply cook this stirring for a few minutes until we decide it's ready. And the beautiful thing about escrow is you don't even have to cook it. Okay? It really is delicious eaten raw. So if you only want to cook this for a minute or two, it's going to be great. But if you prefer your greens a little more on the tender side, then I'd probably cook this for more like 5 to seven minutes. And if you've never made this before, simply keep tasting until you're happy with the texture. And once we feel like we're getting close and we're happy with the texture, we can reduce our heat to medium low. Oh, and speaking of tasting, we definitely need to check for salt since depending on how salty your sausage was and your chicken broth was. You may not need any or like me, you might decide it needs a nice big pinch. So, I went ahead and stirred that in. And as soon as that's tasting good to you and your greens are cooked to the perfect dness, we will turn off the heat and serve that up. And in real life, just go ahead and garnish and eat. Okay, I have to take a spoon and tea some of the sausage up to the surface. Since, as you well know, I have to take some contractually obligated pictures. But whether you decide to expose your sausage or not, we will garnish with some freshly chopped Italian parsley as well as some freshly grated lemon zest, which I really do think is key here. We will also sprinkle over some more chili flakes before we finish up with a nice drizzle of extra virgin olive oil. And that's it. Our Italian sausage, beans, and greens is ready to enjoy. And I'm going to show you how to do that properly in a few moments. But at this point, I had to grab a spoon and dig in because it just looked and smelled so good. And that, my friends, to me is the epitome of simple, rustic Italian comfort food, right? This is just so satisfying and delicious. That savory sausage and earthy beans and that bittersweet escarole, which again is just the perfect choice for this. And as fantastic as that was eaten right out of the pan, let me go ahead and show you how I really think you should eat this, which is in a bowl next to some fresh lemon and some beautifully toasted bread. And after tossing on some more chili flakes and maybe another touch of olive oil, I think we should finish with a little freshly grated parmesan over the top. And please use the real stuff, Parmesano Reiano. And what we'll do is squeeze in a little bit of fresh lemon, which really brightens things up and amplifies all the other flavors. And then we'll grab a piece of toast and a spoon. And we'll get in there. And we'll get in there deep. And as good as those bites in the pan were, the addition of that fresh lemon juice and that little bit of parmesan take this up to a whole other level. And if there's a better thing to eat on a cold, wet, windy winter day, I do not know what it is because this really is perfection. Which is why no matter what beans you use or which greens you use or whether it's sunny and beautiful or cold and nasty, I really do hope you give this a try soon. So, please follow the links below for the ingredient amounts, a printable written recipe, and much more info as usual. And as always, enjoy.