Ingredients
- 1 tbsp vegetable oil
- 65g cubed pancetta or air-dried streaky bacon
- 1 packets good pork sausages,
- 1 onion, roughly chopped
- 1 carrot, chopped into small pieces
- 2 garlic cloves, roughly chopped
- 1 sprig fresh rosemary
- 200g Puy lentils
- 425ml hot chicken stock
- 1 dessert spoon white wine vinegar
- 400g can chopped tomatoes
- Heat the oil in a large casserole or very large sauté pan with a lid. Add the pancetta and sausages and sizzle for 10 minutes, turning the sausages occasionally until nicely browned and sticky. Scoop the sausages out on to a plate.
- Add the onions, carrot and garlic to the pancetta and continue to cook for 3-4 minutes until the onions soften.
- Return the sausages to the pan and add the rosemary, lentils, stock, vinegar and tomatoes, then season with salt and pepper.
- Bring to the boil and simmer rapidly for 5 minutes, then lower the heat, cover and simmer for 30 minutes, stirring every so often until the lentils are tender.
Method
Two things I love - Sausages and Puy Lentils combine here to make an unctuous savoury treat for a March day when the promise of spring has abated for a while and it has turned cold again. This is a wholesome and tasty family meal which I made for the first time today - again driven by the fact of a package of sausages in the fridge (and as long as they are good ones, I don't think it matters a lot what precise type they are) and not wanting to do popovers or sausage and chips. Actually it had been a pretty dreary day, so the opportunity to do something new was driven as much by just wanting to DO something as anything else.
It being a Monday the Middle Girl was out for supper anyway, so it was just the Boy and the Youngest (the Eldest still being in France...) They tend to be more open to trying things (or do they just moan less) and I can stand being moaned at by 2 if it comes down to it!
So I scoured the net as per and found this. I scaled the amounts down as they were stated as for 6 - although I kept the amount of tomato the same, and slightly scaled the lentil quantity to absorb the additional liquid. All told, this ended up with a quantity that would feed 4. It was very easy (although it take the better part of an hour to cook) and the result was very tasty. It would probably be improved by the addition of some chopped fresh thyme as well as the rosemary but it is very good, and healthy too. The Offspring were a little mixed about it, but that is because they come in with an adversarial attitude to Lentils just because they are lentils, closed minds. Actually I think lentils - especially Puy lentils are fantastic, earthy and with a good mouth feel and have the great added benefit of not being pure carbohydrate.