Réunion Sausage

Cookbook author Tessa Kiros loves cooking local dishes with locals on her travels. She made these spicy sausages on the island of Réunion together with Catherine. You can use smoked sausages, but Catherine prefers regular sausage. Sometimes boudin noir is also used, a blood sausage that is not cooked beforehand.

Catherine uses 4–6 chillies, but follow your own taste above all. The tomatoes need to be very ripe, so use canned tomatoes if necessary. Serve this with white rice and creamy lima beans. It’s also delicious warmed up on a baguette.

Preparation

Prick each sausage in a few places. Bring a pan of water to the boil. Add the sausages and simmer gently for 10 minutes. Drain them.

Heat the oil in a large non-stick frying pan with a lid. Brown the sausages all over and halfway through add the onions to the side of the pan. Place the sausages on a plate. (If you have little room in the pan, you can fry the onions once the sausages have been removed from the pan.)

Use a mortar to pound the ginger and chillies with a little coarse salt into a purée. Stir the purée into the onions in the pan. Add the tomatoes with a little salt and pepper (the sausages may already be well seasoned, so don’t overdo it), and the thyme. Cover the pan and simmer everything for 12–15 minutes, until the tomatoes form a chunky sauce.

Return the fried sausages to the pan and add the green peppers. Toss, cover the pan and simmer the dish gently for another 5 minutes; add a little water if it seems too dry.

Remove the pan from the heat and leave it covered for 10 minutes. Sprinkle the flowers over the dish before serving.

Recipe from: Tessa Kiros – The French World Kitchen, published by Terra Lannoo, € 29.99.
Image: Manos Chatzikonstantis.