A very easy, hearty and delicious recipe for a Polish white bean and sausage stew – Fasolka po Bretonsku.
Strangely enough, I know quite a few people who don’t enjoy eating beans. All of them German people of course, I don’t remember ever hearing a Romanian person saying that beans are not good. I grew up eating lots of beans in Romania and I have quite a few recipes on the blog to prove it. 🙂
Have a look at these recipes that my grandmother used to cook all the time: the White Bean Soup with Smoked Spare Ribs and Tarragon, the Romanian White Bean Dip with Caramelized Onions – Fasole batuta or Grandma’s Perfect Bean and Vegetable Stew – Romanian Beans.
My husband and I love beans, my kids are starting to be OK with them, they are not particularly happy when I make something with beans, but they are eating them anyway. As far as I am concerned, I could eat beans at least once a week and I even found myself buying a can of baked beans from time to time, because I just happened to have a sudden craving for beans, but didn’t have the time to cook a proper bean stew…
But those canned baked beans are nothing at all compared with the real deal: a hearty, spicy, comforting stew with buttery white beans and maybe some sausages, bacon or ham pieces inside, my mouth is watering just by thinking about it…
This Easy White Bean and Cabanossi Sausage Stew is a Polish recipe, something we had for dinner in the hotel where we were staying during our holiday in Poland last year. Like I have mentioned above, I totally have a thing for beans, so unlike my kids, who could not see the point of having a bean stew in a hotel, I was particularly happy about it. The recipe is very similar to a Romanian white bean stew recipe and maybe that was a reason for me to enjoy it even more, it reminded me of my childhood.
So, when we were back home, it didn’t take long until I looked for a typical Polish bean stew recipe and cooked it myself. Actually, this was the first Polish recipe I have ever cooked, not a cake like this amazing Meringue Cake with Mascarpone Filling – Polish Bezowy Torte, but beans. Obvious to see where my priorities lie…
More warming stews?
Easy Potato Stew with Sausages and Vegetables
Pork, Rice and Cabbage Stew – Gypsy Recipe Sah Hai Mas
Moldavian Pork Stew with Cheese, Eggs and Polenta – Tochitura
Stewed Sauerkraut with Meat Dumplings
Easy White Bean and Cabanossi Sausage Stew – Polish Recipe
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Ingredients
- 200 g/ 7 oz dried white beans or 450 g/ 16 oz canned beans (see note)
- 1 tablespoon sunflower oil
- 1 onion
- 2 medium carrots
- 125 g/ 4.4 oz smoked ham or smoked bacon
- 250 g/ 8.8 oz cabanossi sausage
- 2 tablespoons tomato paste
- 250 g/ 8.8 oz pureed tomatoes
- 250 ml/ 1 cup vegetable broth/ beef or chicken stock
- 3 bay leaves
- ½ teaspoons dried marjoram
- 1 teaspoon sweet paprika powder
- ½ teaspoon smoked paprika powder, optional
- ½ teaspoon ground allspice
- ½ teaspoon sugar
- salt and pepper
Instructions
You can use canned beans or you can cook you own beans. To cook your own beans, give about 200 g/ 7 oz dried beans to a large bowl. Cover with cold water and soak overnight. Drain, give to a pot, cover with plenty of water, add 1 halved onion, 2 bay leaves, some black peppercorns and some all spice corns and cook the beans until soft, at least 1 hour or more, depending on the size and age of the beans. You can replace the broth or stock used to make the stew with some of the beans’ cooking liquid and in this case add a stock cube as well.
Chop the onion finely. Chop the carrots into cubes or slices. Cut the ham or bacon into cubes as well. Slice the sausages.
Heat the sunflower oil in a heavy bottomed pan. Cook the finely chopped onion until translucent. Add the carrots and the smoked ham or bacon and continue cooking for about 5 minutes, stirring from time to time.
Add the tomato paste, stir well to coat the vegetables and sausages, then add the pureed tomatoes as well, together with the broth or stock (or beans’ cooking liquid + a stock cube), bay leaves, marjoram, both paprikas, ground allspice, sugar and some salt and pepper.
Bring to a boil, turn the heat down to low and simmer the stew, uncovered, for about 10 minutes. Add the cooked beans and simmer gently for another 10 minutes.
Adjust the taste with salt and pepper and serve the stew with bread and gherkins or other pickled vegetables.
Notes
If cooking your own beans you will need one extra onion, another 2 bay leaves, some black peppercorns and some allspice corns. If using already cooked beans, this dish will be ready in no time.
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10 comments
Looks delicious! I love beans of all kinds so this is right up my alley. I also love a rustic hearty dish like this that gets better with age. I wish I had a nice big pot of it!
Thank you, Monica. I am craving it again. 🙂
My husband and I eat a lot of bean dishes and this does sound like a very good meal.
It is delicious, Karen, so hearty and comforting.
You will never believe it, but I started to soak these beans this morning in order to cook fasolka po bretonsku tonight!!!
It’s one of my favourite Polish dishes! Maybe also because these big beans are also my favourite among all the beans.
Great, I love it too. Is your recipe similar to mine? I wanted to make this delicious Polish twarog spread today, I had it every day for breakfast in Poland, but could not find the darn cheese. 🙂 I have to look somewhere else.
It’s more or less the same, but I always add dried marjoram, a very popular herb in Poland, which in my opinion goes perfectly with all the Polish pork dishes (sausages or cooked meat); I posted a recipe I use some time ago
http://www.withaglass.com/?p=12021
Do you mean the fresh cheese and chives spread ? My mum used to add radishes too (especially in spring!) and I love it this way too
http://www.withaglass.com/?p=9832
The funny thing is that in France one can buy the equivalent of this fresh cheese but made from goat’s milk… no one has ever thought of making it from cow milk! Luckily I live close to French border and buy tons of goat cheese from a local farmer, at a Saturday market. Then I make this spread with goat cheese and it’s fantastic (it would cost a fortune in Poland, haha!).
Look at that thick sauce with all those delicious ingredients. This is one of those soups you can just look at and know that it has a HUGE depth of flavors. Love it! Also, thanks for introducing me to cabanossi sausage. I’ve never had it before, so I’ll be keeping an eye out for it.
I am German, and until I started cooking beans (from cans) when I reached my teens and started on my culinary journey around the world buying all kinds of international cookbooks, I can’t remember ever eating beans other than the green ones. I now own 3 regional German cookbooks, all about the South of Germany (south of Hesse), and not a single one contains a bean recipe. So I guess beans are just not part of our culinary tradition. I’ll gladly give this one a go as the ingredients are easy to get and it looks and sounds mouthwatering, though it is up against hugeeee competition: despite my now decades-long history of cooking beans, I have never eaten a more satisfying bean dish than your Romanian white bean and vegetable soup. I can’t currently imagine that this will change, but I’ll more than happily add this one to my repertory of frequently cooked dishes. 🙂
Wow, Karin, so nice to hear that you like my bean soup so much, we love it too. And I think you will like this Polish dish too, it is really hearty and satisfying. And it is true, the Germans are not much into beans or pulses generally, my mother-in-law never cooks anything with pulses, the only beans I have ever had in her house are green beans with Schmand. Just the other day, I met a neighbor in the supermarket complaining she has to find black beans and yellow lentils, which are not easy to find around here. She needed that for a Landfrauen-Meeting where they talked about the health benefits of eating pulses. Her conclusion was that “Who on Earth eats pulses anyway, I would rather stick to what I know!” Only Kopfschütteln!!!