Most of the recipes I've done with lentils have had an Indian leaning. My early forays into veggie cooking usually involved ingredients, recipes and dishes I had encountered while traveling around India. That's where I really got to grips with lentils: all the different dhals cooked with ginger, chilli, coriander and other rich spices and garnished with green coriander, fried onions or garam masala. I love all that, but here's something a bit different for a change, a lentil recipe with a more mediterranean flavour. This is loosely based on a traditional north Italian winter recipe, which in the original calls for smoked pork or ham. But, there's really no need for that,. Here's a lighter, less fatty dish which still has all the flavour of the mediterranean herbs, sun-dried tomatoes and garlic.
To feed four.....
Ingredients
A couple of medium aubergines (or one big one, three or four small ones, etc.)
1 onion
1 large red pepper
3 or 4 cloves of garlic
A handful of sun-dried tomatoes
1 cup of lentils
A third of a teaspoon of dried rosemary
A couple of dried sage leaves
A couple of dried red chillies
Olive oil
A few sprigs of fresh pasley
Salt
Hot water
Soak the dried tomatoes in some hot water before you do anything else. That way they will have softened by the time you need them.
Chop the onion finely and fry for a few minutes until transparent. Add the lentils and crushed and roughly chopped garlic and fry for a few minutes more. Chop the red pepper into fairly large pieces and slice the aubergine into quarters lengthways, then cut the quarters into 5cm (2 in.) pieces. Stir the aubergine and pepper pieces into the pan with the crushed red chillies. Add the tomatoes to the pan along with the water they have been soaking in, plus about three more cups of hot water and cover. Simmer gently for about 25 minutes (or until the lentils are soft) adding more water as necessary. Add the rosemary, sage and salt about five minutes before the end of cooking time and throw in the chopped parsley just before you serve.
Serve with steamed rice or couscous.