Braised Lentils with Italian Vegetables
Cheap and easy Italian cookery…
Lentils are one of my favourite food staples, they are dried so last an age, cost next to nothing and make for a delicious, filling meal. I eat them every week, a different style to suit my mood; an Indian dal, a Spanish lintage or, as my kitchen garden dictated, slow cooked with Italian vegetables. Now is a fine time indeed for the kitchen gardner, the vegetable patch is full of produce waiting to be picked. Borlotti beans are plump and vibrant, cabbages firm and round and more summer squash than you can ’shake a stick at’.
After a busy morning clearing a thirty foot polytunnel and applying some TLC to fifteen chilli bushes I picked a bag of vegetables and headed back to my kitchen for a spot of lunch. Looking at the produce in front of me I knew it had to be turned into something Italian, all of the ingredients were there; yellow courgette (zucchini) chard, shallots, garlic, chilli and fresh borlotti beans….
The lentils had ben washed and soaked, four or five shallots and a clove of garlic were sauteed in some olive oil, a chopped mild chilli went in followed by the stems from the chard, the leaf goes in last. Lentils are added and covered with vegetable stock, herbs next; savory and bay for me but rosemary, sage or thyme are fine. Cook this slowly for five minutes, chop a courgette into dice and fold those through, check the level of stock, add more to keep it moist. Give it three of four minutes before adding your fresh or tinned beans. When the lentils are all but done stir in the shredded chard leaves and give the pan a good dose of ground salt and pepper, a slug of good red wine vinegar and a generous amount of olive oil. Pile it all into a bowl and get stuck in.
Always make more than you need, tomorrow is another day. If it’s hot eat it cold with some char-grilled ciabatta, if it’s cold (i.e if you live in England) add more stock, puree it and enjoy a thick lentil soup with all the vitamins and minerals to see you through another day on the treadmill of life.
Miles
looks great and fabulous photos as well
Rod
August 18, 2008 @ 7:15 am
Rod,
Thanks, you should give this a go, you have all of the resources avaliable
Miles
August 18, 2008 @ 7:17 am
Miles,
That looks delicious. What a great feeling and taste to have it straight from your kitchen garden. Did you use ordinary green lentils or Puy Lentils?
This will certainly be tried at the Nean household.
Elsie
August 18, 2008 @ 8:30 am
Elsie,
I used green lentils, Puy are wonderful but more expensive. Look out for the small Umbrian lentils, they are excellent in a dish like this.
Miles
August 18, 2008 @ 3:50 pm
Miles,
After my success with the red cabbage recipe I’m now ready for a lentil dish. By the way was that chard under cover? All that remains of my leafy green veg experiment have been munched by cabbage whites….. the ghostly stems are all that’s left! Can’t complain though, we had lots of meals from the kales and I would certainly grow them again. The butternut squash are sprouting in every direction so there should be quite a harvest during autumn with any luck.
Cid
August 18, 2008 @ 5:08 pm
Cid,
‘Tis indeed chard and a particularly fine one at that though I say so myself.
Kale is great, you’ve done very well there. Don’t mention the butternut again otherwise you might be treated to some of that Chinese democracy editing used with great gusto on a certain other blog we know
Miles
August 18, 2008 @ 7:56 pm
Miles,
I feel a bit like the weather today so a trip to my local grocer with all the colour and panache on offer will be just the thing.
The Hairy Bakers last night brought it home to me after seeing them in a Lincolnshire windmill, that there’s not been enough baking in this house recently. Therapeutic kneeding is what’s needed (!) on a wet and dreary day. All this rain must be doing something some good if not the grain, perhaps the pumpkin growers are loving it and the bu…… , the b……, and other closely related veg
Cid
August 19, 2008 @ 10:27 am
Cid,
It is rubbish isn’t it? I have just picked another large bag of bright red chillies for drying but my ‘hotties’ the bhut jolokia are showing no signs of ripening-we need sunshine
Miles
August 19, 2008 @ 2:57 pm
Miles,
I’m surprised your ‘hotties’ haven’t been treated to sun lamps
Still at least it puts off the evil moment of you having to eat one raw…… shudder!
My fig tree is growing like the clappers and fruiting too but the ripe ones are taken by the birds leaving the small ones which probably won’t ripen at all now. I’ve wrapped a couple in tin foil to see if that works to keep the birds off…. I mean to say, where were they when I had a caterpillar attack? It would be just my luck to have purely vegetarian flocks
There’s something aesthetically pleasing about a string of bright red chillies, enough by the sound of it to keep every cold and flu away this winter. I came back from the grocers with all sorts of roasting veg which pleases me as much as a bunch of flowers. Time to take stock now and see just what is still lurking in cupboards that might want eating up….. I can see I still have a couple of preserved lemons for instance. A friend of mine has recently set up home with a man who cooks and don’t we all adore him. He gave me a jar of his homemade lime pickle which has been slowly maturing and very tasty it is too. You’ve said it before Miles, and how true, the social side of cooking and food in general is a wonderful thing.
I would welcome any thoughts on what I can do with a small jar of tamarind paste?
Cid
August 19, 2008 @ 3:44 pm
Cid,
A lovely comment, thankyou. Tamarind is a great ingredient used in Asian cookery. Be it in block or pod form you need to soak the flesh in hot water. Leave it for a while then give it a good squeeze with your hands before passing it through a sieve.
The juice can be used in soups, curries, stews and drinks. It can be used as a souring agent in chutneys and tomato ketchup whilst the Balinese make a tea of it.
Don’t use too much because it can overpower. Good luck with the veg
Miles
August 19, 2008 @ 4:22 pm