Yes, they looked like clams or some other mollusk, but those were lentils in my photos yesterday. I had bought and was cooking a 500 gram bag of lentilles vertes du Berry. They are produced by the Association Lentilles Vertes du Berry in Saint-Georges-sur-Arnon, just outside the town of Chârost, near Issoudun, in the old Berry province.
Lentils are easy to prepare because you don't need to soak them before cooking them, and they take only 20 to 30 minutes to cook.
I made what is called une brunoise — aromatic vegetables cut into tiny dice — to cook with the beans. It was onions, garlic, and carrots.
I "sweated" the brunoise in a little bit of duck fat before adding the lentils to the pot and tossing them with the fat and vegetables. Then I added water and a little bit of stock.
I also had some meats left from the choucroute garnie that I cooked a few days ago, so I diced those up and put them in the pot with the lentils and vegetables. They included some smoked ham hock, part of a smoked saucisse de Montbéliard, and most of a saucisse de Francfort. In France lentils are often cooked and served with the salt-cured pork called petit salé, but smoked pork is also good with them.
That made a nice lunch, with a green salad and some good bread and wine. I can't remember eating very many lentils in the U.S. Maybe they are more popular here in France. And in India and other parts of Asia, they are made into what is called dal and eaten with flatbreads or rice.
Ah! Lentils. Never even occurred to me yesterday.
ReplyDeleteIn Greece we eat lentils a lot, especially in the winter stewed with tomatoes. Yours sounds much nicer, more flavour with meat.
ReplyDeleteI'm going to have to cook some lentils with tomato now. Maybe some of my oven-dried tomatoes.
DeleteThat looks hearty and sound yummy!
ReplyDeleteI don't eat them but I don't eat meat so I am aware of the gazillion dishes there are that contain lentils .. Lentils are often used in recipes to replace the meat in a dish ..
ReplyDeleteRice and lentils are good vegetarian eats.
ReplyDeleteLove lentils, but did not recognize them in yesterday's photo. Thought perhaps they were some odd sea creature! Curried red lentil soup is my current favorite lentil dish.
ReplyDeleteI have at least six lentil recipes--we eat the basic brown ones frequently.
ReplyDeleteDo you ever make lentil salads, with vinaigrette?
DeleteOui, mais pas bio. Les lentilles font parties des 10 fruits et légumes les plus contaminés avec des pesticides, d'après le Huffington Post. Je ne suis pas sur que le label rouge change quelque chose à ce niveau, alors je préfère les acheter en bio, comme tous les autres fruits et légumes.
ReplyDeleteI think that in the US lentils are still considered sort of hippy-dippy food, not in general use.
ReplyDeleteI like them with tomatoes and/or carrots. Or, like Thickethouse, as a curried soup for the red ones. They can also be used in chili.
I know someone who uses lentils in place of meat to make a vegetarian shepherd's pie. Or one could just add a mashed potato crust to your lunch dish and have a real rib-sticker!
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