Wow your guests with this unusual recipe. Good quality sausages are essential for this recipe. A high meat content is required and the sausages can be plain or flavoured. Richard used one, long, German-style sausage. A good butcher will be able to make on
Ingredients
Lentils:
- 350 g green lentils, washed under cold running water
- 100 g pork belly (finely chopped)
- 4-6 shallots peeled (sliced and roughly chopped)
- 2 medium carrots (cubed)
- 2 cloves of garlic peeled (finely chopped)
- olive oil
- 25 g unsalted butter (diced)
- 1 bouquet garni (peppercorns and thyme rolled in bay leaf, secured with kitchen string)
- sea salt
Sausage:
- Olive Oil:
- 25 g unsalted butter (diced)
- 1 long german style sausage or 2 sausages per person
To Finish:
- cooking liquid from lentils
- 1 tsp dijon mustard
- bunch of chopped tarragon
- 1 dessertspoo of cream
Method
Lentils:
- Melt the butter and a little oil in a sauce pan, add the pork belly, fry until slightly coloured.
- Add the chopped shallots, carrots and garlic, cook over a medium heat stirring constantly. Cooking until vegetables are softened but not coloured.
- Add the washed lentils and bouquet garni to the pan.
- Cover with cold water (600ml), the water level should be approximately 2cm above the lentils.
- Bring to the boil continue to boil for 10 minutes, reduce down the heat and simmer for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. The green lentils will be tender and have a slight chewy texture.
- Strain the lentils through a sieve, retaining the cooking liquid that is being poured off in a jug. Remove the bouquet garni from the lentils.
- Put the lentils and cooking liquid to one side.
Cook the Sausage:
- This is best done at the same time that the lentils are cooking.
- Heat some oil and butter in a heavy-based frying pan. The pan should be hot enough to make the sausage sizzle when you put it in the pan.
- Add the sausage and pan-fry over a medium heat for between 10-15 minutes depending on how thick the sausage is.
- Turn the sausage occasionally until it's cooked through and golden in colour.
- When the sausage is cooked remove from the frying pan and allow the sausage to rest on a plate.
To Finish:
- Deglaze the frying pan by keeping it on the heat and adding the liquid from the lentils to the pan.
- Once the liquid is boiling, bring the pan back to a gentle simmer. Reduce the liquid by half.
- Add the Dijon mustard, chopped tarragon and a cap full of cream to the pan and blend well.
- Return the lentils and vegetable mixture to the frying-pan and allow the lentils to heat through.
- Check for seasoning and adjust with salt and pepper to suit your taste.
- Return the sausage to the frying-pan on top of the lentils, remember to add any juices from the resting plate and serve immediately.
Notes:
Lentils are very valuable source of vegetable protein. They are considered a high biological value protein because they contain many essential amino acids.
Omit the pork belly and sausage and you have a wonderfully nutritious vegetarian meal. Richard always uses unsalted butter. In this recipe he uses butter as well as oil when cooking to give the sausage a better colour.
Richard dices the butter, it melts quickly and heats through evenly in the frying-pan. Richard also uses pork belly, this is for flavour and optional you could substitute this with bacon lardons or green rashers.
