Comfort Food - Sausages with Lentils

The first time that I cooked this meal for Neil I was convinced he'd hate it. In fact, he loved it. I think he had a bit of a cold at the time and this was warming, surprisingly wholesome and super tasty. It was soon the dinner he looked forward too the most. Unfortunately, the last time that I cooked it I screwed it up with over-seasoning (usually not a problem for me, quite the contrary in fact) and by over-cooking the sausages. It put me off and I didn't cook it again for, well, it must have been at least a year.

Feeling under the weather, I thought the boy needed a treat and so I decided to pull an old trick out of the bag and cook this comforting dish once again. It sounds simple and it is, a healthier (but not lighter, necessarily) alternative to that old favourite sausages & mash.

The recipe is adapted from a Good Food Magazine recipe and goes as follows:

4 x sausages (I used Marks & Spencer sausages - 2 good quality pork sausages, and some lesser quality pork and herb sausages - they all needed using up!).

1tbsp sunflower oil

1 Streaky bacon rasher, chopped

1/2 onion, finely chopped

2 carrots, chopped

1/2 celery stick, chopped

1 fresh thyme sprig

100ml chicken stock

250g beluga lentils

2 tbsp creme fraiche

mustard

1. Rinse and drain the lentils. Add the lentils and water to cover to a pan and cook for 20 minutes.

2. Heat a shallow pan, fry the sausages in their own fat, over a low heat until at least 65'C throughout.

3. In the mean time, heat the oil in a saucepan and fry the bacon for 2 minutes. Stir in all of the veg and the thyme and cook for 8 minutes

4. Add the stock, simmer again for 8 minutes.

5. Drain ht lentils and stir into the veg mix. Heat - stir in the creme fraiche.

6. Serve with the sausage and a dollop of mustard.

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I'd like to say that this brought back memories of wonderful dinners of days gone by, but unfortch I fucked it up a little.

I think the major problem was the inclusion of the beluga lentils. I had always previously used a can of green lentils, but in an effort to save money I used a box that we already had in the store cupboard. The other mistake was that I didn't drain the lentils before stirring them into the veg. I only made this decision because there was very limited liquid, and I thought the dish could benefit from a little wetness. I was wrong, it just lost a little flavour.

Oh well - Tomorrow we are going to Pierre Koffman's Restaurant on the Roof - Hopefully he'll do a better job than me ;)