If you wanted with this dish you could actually go vegetarian and leave the chorizo out. I’m not sure what you could substitute for the chorizo yet but it’d be nice without it. I’d just add in a good pinch of chilli to make up for the missing chorizo / fat / oil / taste.
What’s in the picture?
- Chilli Flakes (Completely optional I didn’t add in any as I don’t want to kill the kids)
- Chorizo (The non fresh variety) (I’m opting for a mild doux chorizo here … again if you want more kick there are generally 3 levels on the various chorizo like this I’ve seen)
- 1 large onion (2 medium in my case)
- Carrots (2 large? I’ve a mix here and it bulks things up nicely)
- Lentils … I’m going with a large tin and a normal tin here (Using dry I’d probably cook up around 300g most of the way ..drain and add to the mix for further cooking / flavour)
- 1 normal tin of chopped tomatoes
- 1 or 2 garlic cloves (Not in picture in case you think we’re playing Where’s Wally / Ou est Charlie with garlic cloves)
- Paprika (This is a nice smokey one we still have from our time in Spain and it still adds a lovely smokey flavour to the dish)
Chop Chop lets get a move on that lentil stew won’t cook itself. Get chopping your onions as you’ll be frying them in a bit of olive oil first. I like to chop these rather finely as the kids aren’t huge on onion. Leaving larger bits is nice but … one does what one has to.
If you’re using chorizo you can use as much of it as you want. I recommend removing the skin on these packet varieties (I’ve no idea if it’s really animal intestine or something slightly synthetic .. ). I use a half a pack which gives you about 100grammes of chorizo. You could use lots more (I’ve actually a left over chunk I’m using as well), you could keep the pieces larger and get them fried and crispier if you wanted too you can really do whatever variation you want on this dish.
Slice down the chorizo and you should be able to pull the skin off.
Chop it up as small or as large as you’d like. Nice sized chunks are nice .. smaller goes longer.
Into your pot with your already frying onion
Next up I like to dice up my carrots into small little cubes. This is rough .. you can use bigger pieces .. though they’ll take longer to cook.
In with your tomatoes / lentils / carrots. You may want to add more liquid (water / stock) .. pinch of salt / pepper .. and a good sprinkling of a nice smokey paprika.
Cook for around 20 minutes until the carrots are cooked.
Serve and enjoy. Goes nicely with a nice crust of bread. Freezes great for a rainy day and makes a great lunch to bring to the office.
