Chorizo and lentil salad, now that is lunch......

I dont win things very often (hardly ever actually) so when I had a lovely tweet from Sabato telling me I has won a bottle of their delish Mas Portell Merlot Vinegar I said oh yes please. This recipe is inspired by my trip on Saturday to pick up my prize. As the Minister of Finance predicted I did come away having spent some dosh, but in my defence I defy anyone to wander that showroom & not haul the wallet out.......I was actually pretty restrained.......really. Really.

I attended a cooking demo at Sabato a few weeks ago, tapas & cazuela cooking, during which this vinegar was sloshed over some frizzled chorizo. It was completely moreish, and got me thinking how I could incorporate this into something more substantial. While I COULD eat my body weight in chorizo I do realise it probably isn't the lunch of champions. So in came lentils, providing a nutty substance to the hot spicy sausage. Lentils are a great foil to fatty meat, they pick up other flavours and provide a gentle background taste of their own.

Adding some crunch with nuts seemed a good plan, especially as I cant think od Spain without thinking of Almonds (I'll elaborate later....) The dressing is super easy, and uses another Spanish ingredient, Membrillo, or Quince Paste. I love this stuff, we eat a lot of cheese (I don't really have a sweet tooth, but love some cheese at the end of a meal) and this is a gorgeous accompaniment. I should have made some during Quince season (I made Quince and Apple sauce instead....) but the brought stuff is great, and lasts for yonks in the fridge. Anything sweet with a hit of tartness would work of course, redcurrant jelly, guava jelly, fig paste,  even a tangy marmalade? It is melted in the pan you cook the chorizo in, with your red wine vinegar, mustard and some water, simple but tasty.....

Chorizo & lentil salad with membrillo vinaigrette

Serves 2 with enough for lunch the next day (this is a TOP packed lunch)

100 grams lentils (Puy lentils would be great here, or I use these Montebello lentils from Italy)
1 clove of garlic, peeled
3 spicy chorizo sausages ( I love L'Authentiquie Chorizo, nice & spicy)
Handful of Almonds ( preferably raw to toast them yourself, but don't stress if they are already toasted)
One red pepper (capsicum)
1/2 red onion
Parsley (or rocket if you prefer)
Salt & pepper

Dressing

Splash olive oil
1 tbsp red wine vinegar (obviously I can recommend the Mas Portell, but use what you have)
2 tbsp water
1 tsp Dijon mustard
1 tbsp Quince paste (or alternative, see above)

Bring a medium sized saucepan of water to the boil, and add your lentils and garlic. Set the timer for 25 minutes.
Turn the grill to high, and put your pepper, sliced into four pieces and cored, onto a tray. I cover mine with foil, to save washing up. Pop under the grill and burn baby burn. You want black charred bits, so be brave.

When you have reached a sufficiently worrying burntness, take out and pop straight into a plastic bag, sealing the top. The peppers will steam, and the skin will peel off easily after a few minutes.

Sice your onion into thin crescents, and pop in a small bowl. Splash over a tbsp of the red wine vinegar. This will take the acrid taste out of the onion, and make it much more palatable to eat raw. I always do this with raw onion, sometimes using lemon, or lime, anything acid will do the trick. Your friends will thank you....

In a small frying pan toast your almonds. This is done over a medium heat, in a dry pan. Just keep your eye on them, they will burn in a heartbeat. Mine took about 4-5 minutes, when they are done tip into a small bowl, so you can reuse the pan

Pop you pan back on the heat, and add a splash of oil. Chop your chorizo into small chunks, or if you prefer, squeeze out small nuggets of meat from the casing. Add to the pan, and fry for 5-8 minutes until cooked and starting to crisp up. Pop onto a warm plate and get on with your dressing!

Into the same pan add a splash of oil, your water, vinegar, quince paste and mustard. Whisk together and bring to the boil. You will think oh my goodness what a mess, but trust me, it will come together.

Once your peppers have had 10 minutes or so, take them out of the bag & peel the skin off, it will come away easily. Slice into strips, and douse with Olive oil, salt & pepper

Now drain off your lentils, and add your dressing, onions, nuts, and some of the parsley leaves. I use the parsley more as a salad leaf than a herb in this, if you prefer rocket would be great, or mixed leaves. Spoon out onto a plate and top with your peppers, and chorizo. Check the seasoning, and sprinkle over more parsley. Tuck in and enjoy

I have probably made this sound far more complicated than necessary, but I do urge you to try it, even non lentil fans would be convinced. A great vegetarian version would use helloumi cheese and a chopped chili, salty & hot, yummo........

I spent a lot of time in Spain when Mr PK & I lived in London, mainly in Sedella  with my great friend Tiffany & her mum Estelle & much missed step father Dave. Isn't it beautiful?

They grow lots of beautiful produce in the area, including Olives and Almonds. On our very first trip to Sedella, lacking even basic Spanish and flying solo, we stayed in Estelle and Dave's little house, down a narrow lane near the square. We had been invited by Tiff's friend Jose to his parents for lunch after church on Sunday (this is Victoria's tortilla here) so I didn't have any breakfast.
Leaving the house we were waylayed by Antonio Almonds (most males in the village are called Antonio or Paco, so they get extra identifiers....) who had vast bags of nuts in his front room. He spoke no English, so we did lots of smiling while he insisted on pouring a glass of Village wine (at 10am!). Unfortunately some of gesticulating indicated the grapes had been crushed by his very own feet. If this ever happens to you can I offer a kernel of advice?
Don't look at the feet!!!!!!!!

A little disclaimer.....
I am happy to recommend the vinegar as despite winning it, I had already actually brought a bottle myself (before you say greedy trollop I am giving my extra bottle to my sister!) after tasting it,  so I feel happy to recommend. But as a rule I never mention/recommend a product I have not purchased and used myself. :)

Ottolenghi………the name on everyone’s lips

Well, if it isn’t it should be. Yotom Ottolenghi is an inspired chef, and the owner of 4 eponymous restaurants in London. Check them out here http://www.ottolenghi.co.uk/ His second cookbook Plenty http://www.ottolenghi.co.uk/blog/2010/03/02/plenty-by-yotam-ottolenghi/ has just been released, and is a beauty. The food is fresh, interesting, and makes you want to go into the kitchen and start throwing ingredients around immediately. The July issue of Cuisine magazine has several recipes from the book, and you can also check them out on the Guardian website here http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/series/thenewvegetarian

I cooked this particular dish (recipe downloaded from the Ottolenghi website) as it reminded me of a meal Mr D and I ate in Egypt a few years ago. Well, Mr Cast Iron Stomach and the rest of our group ate a plateful, I only ate about two mouthfuls, then ran off to be sick, which isn’t normally a good omen for a dish. This episode had been repeated in reverse a few nights prior except we were on our own.  We ordered dinner in a quiet neighbourhood restaurant, then about five minutes later Mr CIS turned an unusual colour (Resene Beryl Green I think it was....) stated he could not possibly stay, and left me sitting on my tod in a Cairo restaurant, where I was literally the only chick in the house. The lovely proprietor saw what had happened and dragged the TV in the corner over to my table, this made me feel worse as I was depriving everyone else of Knight Rider, but he insisted. I ate dinner and tried to concentrate on the Hoff as best I could with an entire room staring at me, and thanked him profusely when he carefully packaged up the rest of dinner so I could take it back for my missing companion. He insisted his son walk me the five minutes back to the hotel, so I was obliged to take the remains of my fragrant dinner right back to our room, where the patient strangely enough did not thank me.

I think my case of Ramses revenge was percolating well before the kushari made an appearance however, but despite this I could not even think about cooking anything remotely similar for a very long time (ie years!). Kushari is something like an Egyptian national dish, and consists of layers of macaroni, rice, lentils and sometimes chickpeas, with a vinegar tomato sauce poured over, and fried onion to garnish. Along with hummus, fried onions were also off my radar for some time.......in fact my highlight meal of that trip was a jacket potato with coleslaw and cheese I managed to locate in Luxor, and which I ate for three meals in a row. I actually managed to keep it down for a while. When we flew back to London I literally begged the BA stewardess for a second breakfast, some kind of blah"egg" type thing, it's very blandness  being a saving grace for me. You know your starving when you beg for airline food..........(despite this I adored Egypt, and would go back in a flash)

Mejadarah consists of rice and lentils, delicately spiced with cumin, turmeric & coriander, and garnished with fried onions. The original recipe actually deep fries the onions, but I simply shallow fried until crispy and golden, they were a delicious caramel accompaniment to the lentils and rice. According to the website, it is an Arabian dish, served in Lebanon, Syria and Palestine. I served it with cubes of lamb I had rubbed with a little oil,  cumin and sumac, then simply fried until crusty and golden, but still pink and juicy within. A side of chopped tomato and avocado with lime juice may seem odd, but I had to use the avocado, and despite looking a bit incongruous, actually tasted great, a creamy counterpoint to the spice. A drizzle of tahini and yogurt, beaten with a little more lime finished things off nicely.

Lucky me there was enough left over for lunch, a crumble of feta would have been perfect but I didn't have any so I supplied my protein with a boiled egg, it worked surprisingly well....

Mejadarah-from the Ottolenghi website

120g basmati rice
120g lentils- I used Puy lentils
1lt water
½ Tbsp cumin seeds
½ tsp ground turmeric
½ tsp ground cinnamon
2 Tbsp olive oil
Salt and pepper
1 large onion
Vegetable oil for frying
 
Slice the onion, lightly salt and place in a colander to get rid of some of the liquids.


In a saucepan, place the lentils and 750ml of cold water. Cook for 20 minutes or until the lentils have softened but still have a bite.

In a separate large saucepan, toast the cumin seeds until they are fragrant. Add the rice, olive oil, cinnamon and turmeric. Make sure the rice is coated evenly with the oil. Add the cooked lentils with their liquid and the remaining water. Add salt and pepper. Bring to the boil, cover and simmer on a very low heat for 20mins. Leave covered for another 10 minutes.

While the rice in simmering fry the onion till golden brown. Place on kitchen paper. Mix half the onion through and taste for seasoning. Plate the rice and garnish with the rest of the onion.

A recipe, a movie and a book

Technology has failed me somewhat, but finally back online, so will post recipe as promised.
Sausage & Lentils...snappy title or what (serves 2)
Brown a couple of sausages per person ( I like the Pork Apple & Fennel or Red Wine & Venison from the Ellerslie Butcher for this, but whatever you like, just make them good meaty ones) then put aside. Using same pan fry off a couple of onions in olive oil with a clove of garlic, a chopped carrot or two and no cabbage (added nothing but a rank smell). Throw in a tin of chopped tomato's, 120 gr Puy Lentils (available at supermarket in a box usually, or food stores such as Sabato, Farro...) a couple of Bay leaves, and about 400ml liquid (water, stock, red wine, esp if using venison and red wine sausages) with some salt & pepper, and put in a oven proof casserole with a lid, along with browned sausages. Cook at 190 C for approx 1 hr, yummo with bread to mop up the sauce
My celery is nearly ready so that will go in next time. I don't actually like celery per se, but it does seem to add something to soups, risotto etc, so it gets a small corner of one of my raised beds. Was going to post a couple of pics of the garden in full autumn flourish, but of course camera battery flat....as always! Charging now, so will get snapping this afternoon.
No doubt you are sick of hearing born-again gardeners like me wax lyrical about the bounty of their plots, and the absolute succulence of every morsel, so fresh and fabulous it wanders inside and jumps into the pot all on its own.......so let me put it out there right now, that is not me.
I have had some success over my first summer, and more than my share of flops, tomato's being one (I know, who cant grow tomato's???), In fact the best thing I actually produced from my tomato plants was a green tomato relish, after I pulled all the mouldy mildew ridden plants out of the ground still with fruit attached. Actually if there was a prize for growing powdery mildew I would win that hands down.........but I persevere, experience must count for something, and I am getting my fair share:) My little baby cabbages are nearly ready which is encouraging given I appear to have a white butterfly colony in my back yard, these were recommended to me by my mother in law Florence, I cant remember the name, but they are about the size of a softball, which is prefect for two, and means leftover coleslaw does not actually go on into eternity......
Went to see The Reader last night at the Lido, great film, go and see it if you can. You may start out wondering why you should really care what happens to Kate Winslet's character, but by the end of the movie you will, she totally deserved that Oscar.....I have listed a book in my favs called A long Slow Affair of the Heart, by a NZ writer Bruce Ansley. I love this book, he has written about a year spent with his wife Sally on a canal boat in France, it is honest & sometimes very funny, and the absolute opposite of those 'run away to France/Italy and everything works out perfect in the sunshine" books, I am returning my copy (overdue!) to the Remuera Library today, so I know at least one will be available, or it is at Whitcoulls!
Ok, that's enough, off to Brunch:)