French Green Lentils With Sausages

 

I remember so well on our first family holiday to France way back in the early 1990's, shopping in the ( always ) fabulous supermarkets, drooling at the lovely fresh produce and buying my first tin of sausages and lentils. I didn't quite know what to expect as this was something that we certainly didn't experience in the UK. What I didn't expect was for it to be so tasty.... as a home cook to a large family, I didn't really use a lot of pre prepared food - way too expensive - but on a camping holiday in parts unknown anything goes right? May be worth mentioning the lovely family from Essex camping behind us that - too late - made 'beefburgers ' from horse mince ... pet mince at that ....

I had a go at making my own version of this classic French recipe many years later - I think it may have been a James Martin recipe but it was time to revisit this lovely dish and give it another go.

Now there are lots of recipes out there but I knew roughly the flavour that I wanted so I settled for this recipe with a couple of little tweaks of course. 

Ingredients

Soak these a good half an hour before cooking the dish

2 Cups Puy Lentils

2 Cups Water

For the Dish 

2 Onions Finely Chopped

4 Fat Cloves Garlic Finely Chopped

2 Carrots Roughly Chopped

1 Leek Sliced Thinly

25g Good Butter

4 Fat Sausages ( I used nice firm Butchers Sausages but whatever you like )

2 Cups Vegetable of Chicken Stock

2 Cups Water

2 Bayleaves

2 Teaspoons Dried Thyme

2 Large sprigs Fresh Rosemary or 1 Teaspoon Dried

1 Tablespoon Dijon Mustard

Salt and Pepper

Handful Flat Leaf Parsley chopped to finish

Soak lentils in the water for approx 30 minutes and then rinse and drain.

In a large flameproof pot, heat the butter and gently fry the onions and garlic until softened.

Add the carrot and leek and cook for a couple of minutes.

I cooked my sausages for about 20 minutes in the oven until cooked through at this stage and then sliced but you can pop these in whole - I just like them cooked through first.

Add everything else to the pot apart from the parsley, salt and pepper and bring the temperature up to a boil, turn right down cover and cook for approx 40 minutes or until the lentils are soft and buttery.

Add any further stock or water to give you the desired consistency, add salt and pepper to taste and serve with crusty bread