Cooking with Mina - Iahnie de Fasole

Today Mina showed me how to make her delicious Iahnie de Fasole - beans with sausages.

Ingredients

• 1.25kg of white beans
• 3 onions, chopped
• 3 sprigs of fresh thyme
• 1 bunch of parsley, chopped
• 3 bay leaves
• 2 heaped tablespoons tomato paste (no salt added)
• 1 handful of whole peppercorns
• 1 tablespoon salt
• 6 pork and leek sausages (we used macedonian ones)
• Boiling water

Preparation
Overnight (or for at least 6 hours), soak the washed beans in cold water in a casserole dish (that has a lid you can use later).

Method

1. Replace the water that the beans soaked in with fresh cold water and boil for 1 hour on low heat with the lid on
2. Strain the beans in a colander
3. Put the beans back into the casserole dish and fill with enough boiling water to cover the beans with the level about 2cm above the beans, and add the salt
4. Boil again for about 15 minutes or until all the water is absorbed
5. Remove the beans from the stove
6. Cut the sausages in half and score them deeply
7. Fry the sausages (scored side down first) in a frying pan in enough oil to generously cover the base of the pan
8. Once the sausages are done, remove them from the pan but keep the oil, and put them on top of the beans so that any oil remaining on the sausages drains onto the beans
9. Fry the onions in the sausage-oil until they soften
10. Add the parsley and fry on high heat for about a minute
11. Add the tomato paste and fry for another minute
12. Add 1 cup of boiling water, stir though until it begins boiling, then remove from the fire.
13. Take the sausages off the beans and put aside
14. Pour the fried onion mixture onto the beans in the casserole dish and stir through
15. Add the thyme, bay leaves and pepper corns and stir through
16. Add the sausages back to the dish
17.  Simmer covered for 10-15mins (to soften the herbs and peppercorns) with the lid on stirring occasionally
18. Enjoy with dill pickles and crusty bread!