Reconsider the lentil

I've been away from the blog for a few days. It's that time of year. This is when I do the Xmas cookies that are the present we will give to many people. There will be somewhere between 40-45 different kinds of cookies and candies in each tin. It's nuts. It's totally, totally nuts. I'm pleased though, that someone else recognizes this. A few weeks ago I read an article by someone who was advocating that everyone start baking their own cakes. S/he (I don't remember who wrote it), answered the argument that "they take too much time" with the comment "anyone who bakes knows that COOKIES are the demon time stealers, not cakes."
Amen to that. Bake the sheet. Rotate the sheet. Preheat to 350. Cool to 325. Heat to 375. Set the timer. Make the syrup. It's totally crazy. And I wouldn't let the year go by without it.

So, why are we reconsidering the lentil? Ah, I have said to you, gentle reader, that we get where we're going although sometimes it takes a while to get there. Here we go. Several weeks ago, at Savoy restaurant (one of my favorites), one of the dishes came on a bed of green french lentils. I have lentils in the cupboard. I bet EVERYONE has a bag of lentils in their cupboard. Probably about three years old. Why'd you get them? Because they're easy to cook, they're cheap, and they're good for you. Have you paid attention to their taste though? And.... then there's the issue of texture and color. So those lentils are sitting there until you're desperate. And no one is EVER that desperate.

Well, here's a thought or two. I actually like those brown lentils. I think they taste quite fine, and I don't mind the texture at all. But I confess: I have bags and bags of them, and I never us them. "I'll get to them." And then "something better" comes along.

So last week, I was again looking at soup. Hearty, thick, tasty soup, which wouldn't take too long to do. Lentils fit the bill. One of the useless pieces of trivia you'll never need to know is that dried lentils are the only dried legume you don't have to soak prior to cooking. And they cook fast. You can go from a bag of lentils to a pot of soup in half an hour. And they're still cheap. The bag of fancy french green lentils I had in my cupboard cost 2 bucks for a pound and a quarter. When you look at the other ingredients in my soup, you'll note how economical it is.

For those of you who have issues with the color and texture of the "common" brown lentil, I suggest the green ones. They hold their shape, they have a more desirable color when cooked, and the texture is more like a soft sesame seed than anything else, when they're cooked.

What I did was I chopped, very roughly, a cup each of carrots, celery and onions. I sauteed these in olive oil until the sound when from a vigorous sizzle, to a slow one. While that was happening, I used a trick out of Lidia Bastianich's book. If you watch her shows, when she fries or sautees, she moves things out of the way as she adds new things, so there's a "hot spot" to toast the flavor. She does this with tomato paste a lot. Tomato paste is a natural partner for lentils, in my book. I use the stuff in a tube, so I don't have opened cans of stuff going bad in my fridge. I squirted a good two tablespoons onto a bare spot in the pot, and cooked for a few seconds. Then I stirred that into the veggies, and added two cups of dried lentils, and just stirred them to get some oil on them. A big pinch of salt, two bay leaves and then two quarts of chicken stock (here, though, you could just as easily use water, and the soup will be just fine). When the pot came to a boil, I lowered the heat, and let it go for half an hour. Then I pulled out the bay leaves.

At the end of that, I had a soup which would have passed muster anywhere. I decided to bulk it up a little, by slicing half a pound of chicken sausages and frying them until they were just black on the cut surface, and adding that to the soup, together with two cups of cooked pasta that I had cooked as I had with the minestrone soup that opened this blog. It looked a little thick to me, so I added a pint of water, tasted it for seasonings, and added salt and pepper.

I had three good quarts of tasty, inexpensive, and nutritious soup all set to go.

When you're making hundreds of thousands of "time stealing demons" for Xmas gifts, any time you can get back is a blessing. I think we'll be eating more lentils this winter!