Ingredients
1 lb great northern beans (As usual, soak the beans overnight in cold water with a few cloves of garlic and a bay leaf. Put the beans in a pot or a bowl and fill it so the water covers the beans by about two inches)
3/4 lb andouille sausage, cut into medallions
2 medium carrots, finely diced
1 small yellow onion, finely diced
4 large kale leaves, removed from stems and torn into two-inch pieces
1 ½ quarts high quality chicken stock (You can also make your own! DM me and I’ll send you the recipe for the one I used)
5 cloves garlic, finely minced
¼ cup olive oil
¼ cup heavy cream
Kosher salt, to taste
Black pepper, freshly ground
Instructions
Pour your olive oil into a heavy-bottomed pot over medium-high heat. Once shimmering, add in your andouille sausage. Cook until nicely browned and the oil from sausage has mixed with the olive oil (7–10 minutes). Remove the sausages from the pot using a slotted spoon, leaving the oil.
Add in your carrots, onions, and two hefty pinches of salt. Turn the heat down to medium and cook until the carrots and onions are soft and fragrant (7–10 minutes). Grind 6–10 turns of your pepper mill into the mixture. You want the pepper to heat a little bit in the oil which will bloom the spice, deepening its flavor. Once soft, add in your garlic and cook for another minute to make sure it is gently cooked. A note here: we do not want to burn the garlic or any of the other vegetables. Burnt garlic is bitter and not what we want in our soup.
Add your sausages back into the pot and cook the entire mixture together for one minute on medium-high. Add in your beans and your stock, thoroughly stirring the mixture together.
Cover the pot and let the mixture come up to a gentle boil before turning the heat down to medium low. Let it simmer for 20 minutes or up to an hour. Do you want it more stew-like? Let it go for longer and cook down the mixture. In the mood for soup? Add in a little more stock if you notice too much liquid cooking off. This is entirely up to you!
Five minutes before you are going to eat, stir in your kale and your heavy cream.
Serve with crusty bread and make enough to have leftovers. This is one of those recipes that is better the next day. Enjoy!