Sausage & Bean Casserole

Ingredients

• 8 pork sausages
• 300ml hot chicken stock
• 1 x 400g tin mixed beans, drained and rinsed
• 3 carrots, thickly sliced
• 1 red pepper, chunky dice
• 2 tbsp tomato puree
• 1 x 400g tin chopped tomatoes
• salt and black pepper to taste
• 2 onions, sliced
• 3 garlic cloves, sliced
• 1 tsp smoked paprika
• 1 tsp dried thyme
• 2 bay leaves
• 15g parsley, roughly chopped
• 1 crusty sourdough bread, thickly sliced

Method

1. Heat a glug of oil in a large casserole or deep frying pan over medium-high. Season the sausages with salt and pepper, then brown them in a single layer for 6–8 minutes, turning until they're bronzed all over. Don't crowd the pan — if they're touching, work in two batches, or you'll steam them instead of browning. Lift onto a plate; they'll finish cooking in the sauce.
2. Drop the heat to medium and add the onions with a pinch of salt. Cook for 8 minutes, stirring now and then, until soft and starting to catch gold at the edges — those sticky bits on the base are flavour, leave them be.
3. Add the garlic, carrots and pepper and cook for 4–5 minutes. Watch the garlic — you want it fragrant and pale gold, no darker. Burnt garlic turns the whole pot bitter, and there's no rescuing it.
4. Stir in the smoked paprika and tomato puree and cook for 60–90 seconds, pressing the paste against the hot pan to bloom the paprika in the oil. Raw paprika tastes dusty; bloomed paprika tastes of itself — smoky, sweet, alive.
5. Pour in the chopped tomatoes and the hot chicken stock, scraping up the browned bits from the base — that's where the depth lives. The stock breaks the tomatoes down so they taste of fruit, not tin. Scatter in the red lentils, thyme and bay leaves, then nestle the sausages back in along with any juices from the plate.
6. Bring to a gentle bubble, cover, and simmer for 25 minutes, stirring once or twice so the lentils don't catch on the base.
7. Stir in the beans and simmer uncovered for another 10 minutes, until the sauce is glossy and spoonable and the sausages are cooked through. Taste, season, taste again — adjust the salt and pepper now, not at the table. Fish out the bay leaves.
8. Spoon the casserole into bowls, scatter generously with chopped parsley, and serve with thick slices of crusty bread alongside for mopping up every last bit of the sauce.