A hearty sausage and lentil stew recipe, ideal for chilly autumn and winter nights. Serve the delicious dish with a squeeze of lemon and Dijon mustard.
Sausages and lentils are a combination made in heaven and for this way of combining them you must buy decent meaty pork sausages. They are cooked first in the pan, then halved on the slant and stirred into green Puy lentils cooked gently with carrot, onion and garlic. A hint of chilli and a squeeze of lemon right at the end of cooking give the lentils a hit of excitement while parsley brightens the look of the dish giving it a grassy finish.
See also: Satya Beeknoo’s Fire-Roasted Tomato Crab Biscuit Phi Phi
If it is easier, the sausages could be oiled and cooked in the oven — 30 minutes at 200 C/gas mark 6 — while the lentils cook – though that means breaking the rules of Lindsay Bareham’s book, One Pot Wonders.
Serves 4: Prep time 20 minutes: Cooking time 1 hour
Ingredients
- 3 tbsp olive oil
- 12 meaty pork sausages
- 1 onion (l00g)
- 2 cloves of garlic
- 2 carrots (200g)
- 1 generous pinch of dried crushed chillies
- 300g Puy lentils
- 900ml water
- ½ chicken stock cube
- salt and freshly ground black pepper
- 2 tbsp chopped flat-leaf parsley
To serve: - 1 lemon
- Dijon mustard
Instructions
- Heat a tablespoon of the oil in a spacious lidded sauté or frying pan, and fry the sausages until they’re done to your liking. Transfer them to a plate and wash the pan.
- Peel, halve and finely chop the onion; peel and chop the garlic. Scrape the carrots and chop them into dolly-mixture-size dice.
- Heat another tablespoon of the oil in the pan, then stir in the onion and garlic. After 5 minutes add the carrot and continue to cook, stirring often, for a further 5 minutes. Add the crushed chillies, lentils and water, then crumble in the stock cube. Bring to the boil, stirring to dissolve the stock cube, then reduce the heat.
- Cover the pan and simmer for 30 minutes or until the lentils are tender and most of the liquid has been absorbed.
- Leave covered for 5 minutes, then season the lentils with salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste, stir in half the flat-leaf parsley and the final tablespoon of olive oil.
- Halve the sausages on the slant, stir them through the hot sloppy lentils and gently reheat.
Serve with a lemon wedge to squeeze over the top, and the pot of Dijon mustard.
See also: Mary Berry’s Toffee Pear Pudding
