February is coming to an end and some of us cling to the spoon dishes, hurrying the last throes of the stew season, because what comfort it gives. The stew tastes like home. The full belly and hot hands from grabbing the plate must activate some animal instinct that tells you “you don’t have to worry about continuing to look for food, you’re safe”. This is how I imagine myself in winter, like a bear hugging a pot of verdinas or chickpeas with cod.
But everything has its time and you also have to let go. The succession of dishes that we put on the table is a reflection of the seasons and the products available at the time: as a subscriber to my weekly basket of seasonal vegetables, I have no choice but to accept it and cook what I have to; as a consolation, we will always have the certainty that they will return. In any case, we are not going to get ahead of ourselves, since we still have time for a bit of slow-cooked chup chup: after months of vegetable stews, a little renewal is not too much. In today’s case, the renovation consists of grinding our stew until we get a wonderful lentil cream.
Turning a vegetable stew into a cream has two good things. It retains all the flavor of the stew and has the creaminess and elegance of a well-made cream. Although you could take the chickpea stew and pass it through the blender, this recipe is made so that the final result has the perfect balance of sweetness -caramelised onion in large quantities fulfills its function here- and acidity, thanks to the touch of sour cream or creme fraiche (a very little amortized ingredient in our kitchens). Spices and toasted hazelnuts in butter finish giving the final touch of flavor and crunch.
When cooking the lentils, we are going to overdo it a bit: we want a lot of creaminess, so the lentil should be very soft, almost undone. In this way, when grinding we will not find hard pieces or loose skins. Another trick: when we grind the cream, we can finish by adding a splash of extra virgin olive oil while you keep grinding, it will help to emulsify, leaving our recipe at velvet level. And a shortcut: in a hurry or not wanting to wait, you can use canned lentils and cook them for about ten minutes with the sauce and water before grinding. If you let it rest overnight in the fridge, you will hardly notice the difference.
Difficulty
None. If so, patience to wait for the lentils and onion to cook.
Ingredients
- 4 large onions
- 1 carrot
- 200 g pardina lentils
- ½ level tablespoon ground cumin
- Black pepper
- 1 tablespoon of Modena vinegar
- hazelnuts
- a tablespoon of butter
- About 150 g sour cream or creme fraiche
- extra virgin olive oil
- Salt
Preparation
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Cut the onions in fine julienne -in strips- and the carrot in small dice.
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In a large pot pour a good jet of oil, onion, carrot and salt. Cook over medium heat, stirring to prevent sticking, for about 30 minutes until the onion is almost caramelized.
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Add the vinegar and cook for 10 more minutes. Reserve a little caramelized onion to decorate.
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Cover with water up to four fingers above the lentils.
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Add the cumin, ground black pepper and salt to taste and stir well.
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Cook for an hour and a half (30 minutes in a pressure cooker) or until the lentils are soft.
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Blend and add more water if necessary. Add olive oil at the end in the form of a thread while continuing to grind.
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Adjust salt.
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Melt the butter in a pan and toast the chopped hazelnuts. Serve the cream hot with a dollop of cold sour cream and the buttered toasted hazelnuts.
If you make this recipe, share the result on your social networks with the hashtag #RecipesComidista. And if it goes wrong, complain to the Cook Ombudsman by sending an email to [email protected].
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