So, I kinda love those days when you know that the produce needs to be used up quickly or the refrigerator going to begin to have an odor that could launch a neighborhood petition, and not one of joyful appreciation, either.
One cold day in January, I discovery that I had a variety of peppers that were threatening going soft and a head of cabbage that needed attention. I also had an extra bottle of beer from making the Chicken Innards in Beer, although I suppose it’s debatable if there is ever a thing as an “extra bottle of beer.”
I’ll often throw together things with chopped cabbage and call it a meal. That’s what I’d planned here. But when I got to the part where I’d usually mix in the cabbage, I realized that I’d told Karen earlier in the week that we needed to reduce our inventory of canned beans. So, this erupted full blown from my head and worked out beautifully.
Note the instruction about using a frozen block of bulk Italian sausage and how to sear it sequentially. If you don’t have time for freezing it, I’m sure you could work with unfrozen. Perhaps make some little meatballs from it? As you can see from the picture, we really wanted decent sized sausage bites that wouldn’t fall to pieces while simmering in the beer.
Sausage, peppers and beans mélange
Ingredients
For the mélange
- 1 lb ground Italian pork sausage frozen in a block
- 1 tbsp vegetable oil high heat (not olive oil)
- 1 large yellow onion chopped
- 3 cloves garlic minced
- 2 green bell peppers ½ inch chunks
- 1 poblano pepper ¼ inch dice
- 1 jalapeño pepper finely diced
- 12 oz beer amber or dark preferred
- 1 15 oz can garbanzo beans drained and rinsed
- 1 15 oz can black beans drained and rinsed
- 1 tbsp tomato bullion powder
- 1 tsp paprika
- Salt to taste
For the cabbage
- 3 tbsp butter
- ½ head cabbage 1¼ lbs, chopped 1 inch squares
- Salt
- ½ tsp za’atar
Instructions
- Freeze the pork sausage in a block, if necessary.
- Prep the ingredients.Chop onions.Mince the garlic. Chop the bell peppers, poblano pepper, and jalapeño pepper. You can alter the heat of the dish by how much of the jalapeño seeds you keep. All the peppers are added at the same time so you can keep them together when done.Open garbanzos and black beans, drain and rinse.
- Heat your best searing pan over a high heat. When hot, add oil and heat, but not smoke. Or at least get your exhaust fan going first. Add frozen pork sausage, being careful to avoid spatters. Sear the bottom for a couple of minutes, then flip and repeat on the other side. While the second side is cooking, scrape the seared meat off the top to expose a new surface to sear.You can break up the cooked meat some, but we want bite-sized chunks, not finely separated.Continue the flip and scape all the sausage is cooked.
- Remove the sausage meat, leave the fat, and turn the heat to medium.
- Sauté the onions until translucent, stirring as necessary. At that point add the garlic at the center of the pan and sauté about 30 seconds. Add the peppers and cook for about five minutes, stirring regularly.
- Add the beer and let the alcohol start to bubble off. Return the sausage. Add the beans, tomato bullion and paprika. Turn to medium low and cook for 25 minutes.Taste along the way and add salt to taste–how much, if any, will depend on the sausage used and bullion.
- While the mélange is cooking, chop the cabbage and toss it will a couple of pinches of salt to help juice it.
- When there is about 10 minutes left, melt the butter in a skillet over medium heat.
- Add the cabbage, a little additional salt and za'atar. Cook until tender crisp.
- Serve it forth, as they said in medieval cookbooks.