BBQ Kielbasa & Beans

When I made I was looking for a dinner in a soup or stew concept. Something heartier, like a gumbo or jambalaya, but I wanted something different. If I remember correctly I decided to wander around the local Safeway in the butcher department and see if anything tweaked my interest. I was leaning towards a sausage soup, then saw kielbasa. I decided to do a bbq style baked beans dish with the kielbasa. I had plenty of beans, some bbq sauce from a trip that my family took to North Carolina, and plenty of time.

I built this soup more as a meal, and cooked it down to a tighter dish. One could easily have more broth in the meal, and reduce it down so it's a little more soupy than the version I made. My final version was more of a one pot meal, a tighter version of a stew, with spinach and carrots as the primary vegetables that are carried by the grilled kielbasa with pinto and white beans.

I started by grilling the sausage and getting some char marks on it. While that was going on, I started to caramelize the onions and added creole spice, Avenue spice, and a base flavor built on molasses, mustard, Worcestershire, hot sauce, and mustard. Once the onions were cooked to a light jam consistency, I added the tomatoes, carrots, and beans. From there I added the beans and kielbasa, then cooked everything until it reduced properly. I finished the stew with spinach, then seasoned it more with hot sauce and vinegar.

One thing to note is on the frozen spinach. Frozen spinach is a great addition to soups because it has already been blanched and doesn't need to be cooked. I would strongly recommend squeezing the extra moisture out of the spinach after it's thawed. If you don't, you're diluting your soup a bit with spinach water. Even when I blanch fresh spinach, I will squeeze out all the additional moisture so that I am controlling the flavor of the soup a bit more.

The final version of this meal, is a sweet, tangy, smoky, and spicy blend of beans, sausage, and spinach, that you can adjust to your particular flavor profile through more heat, acid, and salt depending on what you like.

Enjoy.

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Ingredients

• cannellini beans (navy beans) 2 cups

• pinto beans 1 cup

• chicken stock 2 qts

• tomatoes, canned, diced 28 oz

• molasses 2 T

• creole spice 1 T

• Avenue spice 1 T

• carrots, peeled, sliced 3 ea

• spinach, frozen, thawed, squeezed 8 oz

• kielbasa, grilled 2 1/4 lb

• mustard, spicy brown 3 T

• soy sauce 1 T

• Worcestershire sauce 1 T

• bbq sauce* 1/2 cup

• crushed red pepper 2 tsp

• onions, sliced 4 ea

• extra virgin olive oil 2 T

• ketchup 1/2 cup

• salt to taste

• pepper to taste

*Feel free and use any bbq sauce you like for this. I've linked a recipe to one that I use occasionally, but when I made this, I used "Carolina Shine" from a vacation in Kill Devil Hills. This particular sauce was thinner, and more vinegar based

Method of Procedure

1. Soak your beans overnight.

2. Grill your kielbasa to get a char on all sides.

3. Begin making your soup by heating up your extra virgin olive oil, then sauteing your onions and crushed red pepper. Add your Avenue spice and creole spice then cook while stirring while the onions begin to caramelize.

4. Add your molasses, soy sauce, Worcestershire, ketchup, and mustard to the onions and stir until everything is thoroughly mixed. Continue to cook on low heat until they begin to break down more, another 30 minutes while stirring.

5. Add your tomatoes, carrots, both beans, and sliced kielbasa to the onions, as well as your chicken stock and bbq sauce. Simmer for 10 hour until the beans are tender.

6. Reduce the soup to your desired consistency, then add your squeezed out spinach. Cook for another 20 minutes, and season to taste.