Can I Use Dried Beans For The Sausages With Beans And Peppers?

Our answer

Nigella's Sausages With Beans And Peppers (from NIGELLISSIMA) is a warming stew that uses canned beans and jarred flame-roasted (red) peppers for ease and convenience. It is possible to roast your own (bell) peppers and soak and cook dried beans if you would like to cook from scratch.

The recipe uses two 400g (15-ounce) cans of beans. A drained can yields about 235g of beans, so a total of 470g (about 3 cups) of cooked beans would be needed. When using dried beans the rule of thumb is that beans will roughly double in weight when cooked, so you would need about 235g dried beans, regardless of the type of bean used. For the US one 15-ounce can is the equivalent of between heaping 1/3 and 1/2 cup dried beans (depending on the type of bean) and for butter beans we would suggest using 1 cup total dried beans to give about 3 cups of cooked beans. The cooking time of beans will depend on how old they are. We would suggest soaking the beans overnight and some people like to add a teaspoonful of bicarbonate of soda (baking soda) to the soaking water to help soften the beans. Drain the beans, put in a pan with fresh water and cook following the timings suggested on the packaging. We would suggest at this point that you cook the beans to the softness that you prefer, as they have only a short time cooking in the tomato sauce and will not soften much more. Drain the beans and add to the stew as you would for canned beans. Taste the stew before serving as it may need a little extra seasoning, since canned beans tend to have some added salt whereas you would normally cook dried beans without any added salt.