Lentils : Lentejas

I have a penchant these days of cooking something that freezes well.   That is, cook for 4, have one for lunch today, one tomorrow, freeze 2.

This is a simple, simple, dish-up of lentils.

Thats morcilla you see at the front edge of the picture.  Morcilla of Burgos, made with pigs blood, onion, rice and a blend of secret spices.  I’ll have to try making this at home.  They do, after all, sell fresh blood in the local supermarket (yes, they really do) and I’ve yet to ever buy some and give it a whirl.

This recipe consists of cooking some lentils with some other vegetable and meat-based ingredients to give it more body and enhance the flavour.

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Lentils : Lentejas

Serves: 4

Ingredients

• 250 gr lentils [1 1/4 C]
• 1 green pepper, brunoise [diced]
• 1 onion, brunoise [diced]
• 1 tomato, brunoise [diced] (peeled and deseeded)
• 1 morcilla, whole, Burgos type (with rice) [blood sausage] (see alternatives in the notes for those who aren’t into morcilla)
• 250 gr potatoes (little ones, or cut up big ones) [1/4 #]
• 1 red chili pepper
• 1/2 C dry white wine
• water
• salt
• pepper

Procedure

1. Lentils into a pot and add everything else on top except the potatoes
2. Pour in the wine
3. Add water to double the depth of the ingredients (the lentils soak up a lot)
4. Bring to a boil
5. Lower the heat, cover, simmer for 15 minutes
6. Check for seasoning (add enough salt and pepper)
7. Check for tenderness of the lentils; they should be not crunchy but still have some “bite” to them (time will vary according to the particular lentil you have.  It could take up to an hour )
8. Add the potatoes (top up with water)
• Might as well retrieve the chili pepper about now
9. Bring to a boil again
10. Lower the heat simmer for 15 minutes (cover off, or on, doesn’t really matter)
11. Check for seasoning again and don’t be afraid of using salt
12. Cut the morcilla in slices and serve

Notes

1. I used lentajas castillanas; sort of brown/green.  They’re the most common kind I think; other lentils are perfectly acceptable (the little orange ones might be kind of fun)
2. Presoak lentils overnight or for at least 4 hours and drain.  Some say that lentils don’t need to presoak all that long but I think that just stretches out the cooking time.  Presoaking I like to think of as the environmentally-aware way of doing it; using less energy to cook the things.
3. Don’t add salt until after the lentils are fairly cooked; it’s said to toughen them
4. I dice up the peppers, onion and tomatoes to be evenly dice-sized roughly the same diameter as a cooked lentil.  Visually and texturally this gives a nice finished dish.
5. Use chorizo (spanish sausage) instead of morcilla if you still can’t get your head (or lips) around blood sausage
• The very ingredient-challenged could resort to chopped up hot dogs
6. Freezes well.  I made it for 4, froze 2 in zippered plastic freezer bags (keep the zip seam oriented upwards while freezing and defrosting to avoid slight leakage. Those things are not perfectly hermetically sealed)

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