Italian Braised Escarole and White Beans with Sausage

https://foragerchef.com/escarole-and-...

Ask any Italian American about escarole and beans and you'll probably get a few good stories. It's a simple dish of braised bitter chicory greens and white beans, and similar to many recipes from Italy in the cucina povera tradition I've covered before.

I learned about the dish from my old chef, friend and mentor Lenny Russo. Cooking on the line at his restaurant Heartland we'd occasionally hear him talk about eating the dish growing up, saying:

"we didn't have a lot of money growing up so we ate a lot of escarole and beans, sometimes we'd switch it up and have beans and escarole."

That sentence says a lot about the dish-it's a cheap, filling meal that's also highly nutritious, containing all the seven essential amino acids. It's also delicious and will feed a whole family for a few bucks, especially if you add sausage as I've done here.

Lenny's recipe in his book was the base for the recipe on my site, but he's also donated it to others over the years, most notably Joe Yonan, a food editor for the Washington Post, who has the dish on the cover of his book Cool Beans (using rapini).

Link to the full recipe on my site above, links to the books if you're curious below.
https://www.amazon.com/Cool-Beans-Ult...

https://www.amazon.com/Heartland-Farm...