Sausage Stew with Parmesan Polenta. Cosy, comforting and rich. Creamy, cheesy polenta is topped with a tomato based sausage stew. This is proper, hearty food for an Autumnal evening. If you haven’t tried polenta before, it is made by grinding corn into a coarse, flour like ingredient. A staple in peasant Italian cooking; polenta can be used in cakes, made into fries or used as I have by transforming it into a creamy, mash potato alternative. Finer, ready made polenta can be cooked in around 6 minutes. The coarser, higher grade polenta I have used cooks in around 35 minutes.
If you liked my Sausage Stew with Parmesan Polenta then try my recipe for Spicy Sausage Stuffed Peppers . Please share your recreations of my recipes on Instagram.
Recipe
Serves 4
Difficulty level rookie
Ingredients:
For the Sausage Stew :
- 8 pack of Italian flavoured pork sausages (make sure to use good quality sausages with at least 70% meat content)
- 1 red onion, 1 carrot and 1 stick of celery, finely chopped
- 2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
- 1 red chilli, finely chopped
- 1 tablespoons fennel seeds
- 200ml white wine
- 1 sprig of rosemary
- 500g tub or jar of passata
- 3 roasted red peppers from a jar, finely sliced
- Olive oil
- Salt and pepper
For the Parmesan Polenta :
- 150g polenta (I got from M&S)
- 800ml water
- Vegetable stock cube
- 200g Parmesan
- 100g butter
- Nutmeg
- Salt and Pepper
Method
- Heat the oven to 150C. In a large, ovenproof pan with a lid, drizzle a little olive oil. Add the onions, garlic, chilli, carrot, celery, sausages and fennel seeds. Fry until the sausages begin to brown.
2. Add the wine and allow to bubble for a few minutes. Add the passata, rosemary sprig and a good grind of salt and pepper. Put the lid on and cook in the oven for 45 minutes to an hour. When cooked, remove from the oven and stir through the peppers. Check the seasoning.
3. For the polenta, add the water to a pan and crumble in the stock cube. Bring to the boil and add the polenta, stirring vigorously. Turn the heat to low and cook for around 35 minutes, stirring well every 5 minutes or so. Stir through the parmesan and butter. Season with salt, pepper and around half a nutmeg, grated. (If you use ready made polenta, the cooking time decreases to around 8 minutes in total)
4. Serve the polenta on to plates and top with the sausage stew.
TIPS
- Serve your Sausage Stew with Parmesan Polenta with a side salad for some freshness
- Make it with chicken instead. Us chicken breasts or thighs in the same way as the sausages.
- Make it veggie: add extra veg such as mushrooms or butternut squash. Reduce the oven time to 30 minutes. Stir through a tin of chickpeas that have been lightly fried for the last 5 minutes.
- You may also like: Giant Yorkshire Puddings with Sausages, Mustard Mash, Caramelised Onion Gravy and Kale
