ingredients:
- 1 cup carrots, diced
- 1 cup onions, diced
- 1 ¼ cup celery, diced
- ½ cup broccoli, chopped
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 1 tsp salt
- 2 oz pancetta
- 1 tbsp fresh tarragon, chopped
- ½ tsp cumin
- 1 bay leaf
- ¼ tsp red pepper flakes
- 10-12 grinds of black pepper mill
- 1 cup french green lentils
- 2 cups red wine
- 2 tbsp butter
- 2 tbsp fresh parsley, chopped
heat oil over medium heat. sauté the mirepoix of veggies, broccoli and 1 tsp salt for about 15 minutes.
stir in pancetta, tarragon, cumin, bay leaf, red pepper flakes, and black pepper and sauté about 5 minutes. stir in lentils to combine.
add about 1/3 of the red wine and turn up the heat to medium-high, stirring occasionally. once the wine has been absorbed add another 1/3 of the wine, and let it absorb, about 5 more minutes. then add the last 1/3 of the wine, and let it absorb.
i prefer lentils al dente, not mushy, but you may need to add some water at the end if the lentils haven’t softened enough. remove from the heat and stir in butter.
discard bay leaf and toss in parsley.
4 servings
I cannot wait to make this! It looks really delish, plus has some solid nutritional value. Will check back in when I whip it up 🙂
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Ooh, question: how does this keep? I’m wondering if the broccoli holds up ok in the fridge. Seems like a great dish to make for leftovers.
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the few times i have made this i have had leftovers, and it has heated up nicely and easily, but i’ve never had to keep it more than a couple days. the broccoli holds up fine.
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Gretchen’s recipes are great because you can use the bones of them to make your dish turn out perfectly, but change up the ingredients if you want. I’d like to say I made this dish tonight, but I think I made a derivative version that a certain nation might be very upset that the word “French” is anywhere near. The mirepoix combination I made exactly as the recipe calls for, but also added an aging small yellow squash and a half jalapeno that were lying around. Instead of tarragon, I used fresh oregano. And instead of pancetta, I used blackened onion chicken drippings I had saved from roasting a chicken last friday.
The methods held it together…saute the veggies 15 minutes with only a pinch of salt. Add the spices and let saute for another 5. And then the method for putting lentils in dry and gradually adding liquid was great. Normally when I make lentils I just sort of make them like rice….in a pan, with some water and maybe other stuff– a total crap shoot. What surprised me about this recipe was the volume of vegetables to lentils– there’s a generous amount of veg and it makes all the difference.
Butter and parsley at finish DELICIOSO!
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