Red Bean & Andouille Soup

Being mainly cribbed from the Emeril Lagasse recipe with a few modifications of my own to make things work a little easier.

• 6 oz. andouille sausage or ham, diced. I recommend the andouille sausage, which gives the soup its resulting punch (there's very little actual heat in the added cayenne pepper below), but less-heatproof palates may prefer the ham, and I think I may yet try it this way for Helen. I used Schreiner's, from the Sunday farmer's market, and can't be beat.
• 2 tbsp. vegetable oil. I used peanut oil, which is my favorite oil for frying, but some people may be allergic; grapeseed or, if you are careful, olive oil should be fine. (The original recipe called for 2 teaspoons, which I find unreasonably small, and in fact I just poured enough in the pan to coat it. One reason that might be so is Schreiner's sausages are exceeding lean, and don't leave much, if any, fat in the pan.)
• One small yellow storage onion, chopped. The original called for 3/4 cup, but that's half a small onion, and I like onions, so there.
• 1/2 bell pepper, chopped. I ended up using a sweet red pepper.
• 6 tbsp. chopped celery. I ended up using a small stalk, probably about half again more than the recipe called for.
• 1 bay leaf.
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 1/8 tsp. cayenne pepper
• 1 tsp. minced garlic. (Horrible confession: we ran out, so I had to make do with garlic powder.)
• 3 16-oz cans red beans. I used kidney beans, but azuki beans work for this as well.
• 32 oz. of chicken stock. One reason I wanted to make this recipe is because I had a bunch of stock about to expire.
• 1 cup cooked long-grain rice, as garnish
• 2 tbsp. green onion, as garnish. I omitted both garnishes.
• 1 lb medium shrimp, shelled and deveined. I was originally going to make a gumbo, but the volumes of rice and flour dissuaded me from that path.
• 2 tbsp. butter. I used ghee, which is nearly indestructible as butter goes, and because we have it lying around; but regular butter works fine, too.

In a Dutch oven or large pot over medium heat, cook the sausage until browned and the fat is rendered, about 5 minutes. Drain on paper towels and set aside.

To the fat in the pan, add the oil and heat over medium-high heat. Add the onions, celery, bell peppers, bay leaf, salt, and cayenne and cook, stirring, until the vegetables are soft. (Sorry, browning onions takes about 20 minutes, not 4. Try again, Emeril.) Add the garlic and cook, stirring, until fragrant, 30 seconds. Add the red beans and their juices, cooked sausage, and the chicken stock, stir well to mix, and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer uncovered, stirring occasionally, until thick and reduced slightly, about 30 minutes.

While the soup is cooking, set the butter in a frying pan on medium-low heat. Once the pan has heated up, fry the shrimp. Remove the soup from the heat, add the shrimp, and discard the bay leaf. (If desired, the soup can be pureed at this point using a hand-held immersion blender, or in batches in a food processor.)

To serve, ladle the soup into bowls and top each portion with 1 to 2 tablespoons of the cooked rice. Garnish each serving with scallions and serve immediately.

Pressure Cooker Update 2018-01-15: Several matters:

• Dry beans, IMO, are about half the volume of cooked beans, so substitute 3 c. dried beans. Follow directions below.
• Sausage was Aidells Cajun Style Andouille (UPC 764014458058), which is well under Helen's threshold for capsaicin (and barely noticeable on my own palate).
• Red beans are supposed to cook for 25-30 minutes @ 15 psi with natural release per Pressure Cooking Perfection, the dried bean cooking data I have found most consistently useful. I split the time at 2 minutes "presoak" (quick release), followed by 20 minutes (natural release), followed by 10 minutes at pressure for most ingredients (stock, sausage, vegetables, beans, but NOT shrimp).
• The Instant Pot operates at 11 psi, which means the times above should be increased by about 50%.
• 2018-12-15: Make sure to add the shrimp after depressurizing the soup. It will need to cool down anyway, and the shrimp will help with that.