Recipe 11

Beans with greens and sausages

I have a real hankering to go back to Rome. I want to sit outside Bar San Calisto in Trastevere with a strong cup of black coffee, or a strong campari spritz, and watch the world go by. I want to buy early Spring produce from the Testaccio market sellers and pick up big cream filled maritozzi on my way home. I want to eat fillets of salt cod with puntarelle salad at Dar Filettaro a Santa Barbara, and sausage and courgette flower pizza at Ai Marmi. I want to go back to the old fashioned butcher that I bought veal from, and then eat olives and crisps while drinking prosecco outside Bar Gambero. I want to eat meat stuffed deep fried olives and the life changing salad of wild herbs and foraged leaves with anchovy sauce and sumac at Piatto Romano. I must book a trip.

For now, the closest I am to Rome is a Rachel Roddy recipe, which isn’t a bad thing.

New recipe number 11 is Rachel’s beans with sausages and greens, recently published in The Guardian. It’s a simple dish: browned sausages that finish cooking in a simple tomato sauce; two tins of cannellini beans and a large pile of greens (I used spinach) stirred through the sauce towards the end. In the article that accompanies the recipe, Rachel says it’s a recipe that reminds her of Heinz Baked Beans and breakfast in a tin. I think that’s doing the recipe a disservice, if I’m honest, but then I’ve never liked Heinz Baked Beans nor breakfast in tins.

I loved this dish. Good quality sausages from Turner and George, the butcher round the corner from home, made all the difference.

It was nice to cook and eat a simple supper after a weekend that has been doubly busy/fun and slow/quiet. It began with chicken parmas at an RSA-like pub in the depths of West London followed by karaoke on Friday night, and so, Saturday morning was slow. On Saturday afternoon we walked to Temple for lunch at the very good (albeit a bit hypey) Corner Shop (the warm bread rolls with rotisserie chicken, dijonaise and tomato are my second favourite sandwich in this city) and an afternoon of art at the Hayward Gallery. On Saturday evening we had a perfect dinner at Quality Wines with a friend who is over from New Zealand. On Sunday we had a lazy morning that involved panettone French toast and berries and endless cups of coffee, before walking to Bloomsbury. We finally went to Master Wei (wtf have we been sleeping on) and then spent the afternoon watching the Black Caps play India, which was a bit grim really. So grim Phil gave up and went and did the ironing, which I see as a real silver lining.

When you have all of this on your doorstep I’m not sure why the hankering for Rome is so great. Perhaps it’s a hankering for sun. It’s been the 400th pea souper weekend in a row. But then again, why wouldn’t you hanker for Rome when there’s so much food and fun to be had there? At least we have RR to sate the hankerings.