No. 4 - Andorra the explorer!

Escudella

I thought that this would be a kind of mediocre dish. It sounds a bit bland – a sausage stew with some past – boring. But let me tell you right now this is delicious! A massive hit with Teresa and Gretta who came over for a little Come dine with me Ireland launch night (sad, I know) which whet our appetites nicely, and Luke raved about it when we had left over’s the next day (and not like his usual “this is great babe”). It's savage.

I found other, more traditional recipes that involved using additional chicken, ham and adding marrowbones and ham bones to the stew. The bone part, I left out (although Luke would have loved that) because this dish was thrown together last minute and surprise surprise, I had no marrowbones in the fridge. If you do want to use them, I think you put them in with the water and remove them before you add the sausages. I would like to think that the recipe below is an unfussy escudella for the busy 21^st century woman. A cop out? Maybe. A cheap, tasty alternative? Certainly.

Serves 5-6

6 cloves of garlic, minced

1 onion, sliced

5 carrots, sliced

1 red bell pepper, sliced

5 new potatoes, quartered

A handful of green beans (just because they were left over from Algeria)

250g pasta (a chunky variety)

8 – 10 big sausages

Pinch of saffron

Chopped coriander (I had no parsley, it will not grow on my ledge!)

Tsp paprika

Salt and Pepper

Get out your largest pot. Fry the onions and garlic for a minute and stir in all the vegetables.  Pour in recently boiled water until it’s a couple of inches above the vegetables. Throw in the saffron and paprika and season well with salt and pepper. Simmer until the vegetables are tender. This should take about 45 minutes although I forgot about them so they cooked for about an hour and a half.  The peppers disintegrated but the stock was damned flavorsome.

Fry up the sausages and slice them into chunks. Add the sausages, green beans and pasta to the vegetables and cook until the pasta is al dente. Keep an eye on it incase you need to add a bit more boiling water. (Traditionally you cook the pasta in water and add in at the end but this way the pasta soaks up all of the vegetable stock). Serve in bowls and scatter with the chopped coriander. Go wild on the black pepper.