I saw this recipe in the January issue of Food & Wine (recipe here) and thought that it sounded really yummy. I really like lentil soup, but have never cooked lentils before, myself, so I thought I’d give it a try. They were really easy and they turned out to be delicious! Both kids loved them. Girl has been trying to speak in Spanish a lot lately and she must have said “Me gustan los lentils” about three times at dinner (for those of you that actually KNOW Spanish, I said she was TRYING, not that she was fluent…..). Hubby is out of town on business, but I think he would like these, too – I’ll definitely be making them again! Future Vegetarian Girl didn’t care for the boudin. Boy loved it until he overheard me talking on the phone to Hubby about the fact that boudin has “organs” in it. Guess I blew that one. Oh, well…..more for me!
As usual, I made a few adaptations. Something about the celery and onion made me think “Cajun” when I saw this recipe, so I used boudin instead of the chicken sausage. I had some in the freezer, anyway…..why use chicken when you can have pork liver?
Boudin is really fragile and falls apart easily once it’s cooked (because of all of the rice), so I just grilled it slightly, then gently sliced it and served it alongside the lentils, rather than trying to stir it into them (it would have fallen apart). It actually might have been good to pull the boudin out of the casing and stir it (loose) into the lentils after they were cooked – maybe I’ll try that next time.
I used a little less onion than the recipe called for and just chopped all of the vegetables myself, rather than food-processing them. I actually don’t OWN a food processor, nor do I want one. I actually find chopping veggies, herbs, etc. by hand (with a GOOD knife) to be cathartic. Weird, I know….. The only time that I wish I had a food processor is when I have to grate large amounts of cheese for something and it’s hardly worth it for just that….. Because of my hand chopping, the chunks of veggies (especially carrots) were more evident in my dish than they were in the original, but I kind of like that, anyway. I didn’t add the wedges of onion – just used the chopped, pre-cooked onion.
I didn’t have fresh thyme sprigs, so I just added a bit (1/2 tsp?) of dried thyme to the lentils in the final stages of cooking. I also added a bit of parsley. I’m adding a bit of parsley to almost everything these days, because my plant outside is HUGE.
Oh, and I forgot the vinegar, but that probably would have been really good! Darn.
Addendum:
Boy just woke up, came downstairs, and said that he was hungry, so these lentils may find themselves on our plate as a side dish in the future, rather than as a main dish.