Polish Sausage Stew

After a 6 month hiatus from the kitchen, I began 2013 with an awesomely nice stew extracted from a little Women's Weekly book called Casseroles and Curries that I've had for a few years but hardly ever used.

Wanting to use what was readily available either in my freezer or the condos mini-mart the stew recipe was about all I could make.  The original is a combination of chorizo sausages and pork belly.   I am not keen on chunks of fatty pork belly even though I love crispy bacon and I didn't have chorizos but the Polish sausages in my freezer would have to do.

The other benefit of only using sausages is that cooking and preparation time is reduced by half which kind of suits my rather impatient nature.

Buy yourself a nice bottle of red which you don't mind sacrificing half a cup as an ingredient and drink the rest with your meal.

Bon appetit.

Ingredients (Serves 4)

6 Polish or Chorizo sausages, sliced in 1cm pieces
1 red onion, chopped finely
2 garlic cloves, chopped finely
1 teaspoon paprika
1 red capsicum, chopped coarsely
2 x 400g cans of chopped tomatoes
125ml red wine (mine was a lovely merlot to indulge in as well as cook with)
125ml water
400g can garbanzo beans, rinsed and drained
0.5 cup finely chopped basil (if you have it, if not skip it)

Method

Fry the sausages in a large pan (that has a lid) until browned.  Remove from pan.

Add the onion and garlic with a little bit of oil to the pan and cook until onion is soft.

Return sausages to pan and add the paprika, capsicum, undrained tomatoes, basil, wine and water.  Bring to boil, cover and simmer for half an hour.

Add beans and simmer uncovered for another 10 minutes.

Serve atop mashed potatoes or with crusty bread.