Petit Salé Aux Lentilles (Salted Pork With Lentils)
Another traditional French dish. It’s as cheap as chips and truly delicious. Yesterday I went around Meath St and got some great bargains from the butchers. €1 for a salted ham hock and €0.80 for a small bag of bacon pieces. I had some lentils and carrots so thought I’d make this for the freezer.
Back in the good old days you would have salted the fresh pork for 2 days in salted water and this was a way to conserve extra meat.
Ingredients:
1 salted ham hock and some ham pieces (just ask for cheap cuts of salted pork in the butchers), a bag of Puy lentils, 3 carrots, 2 onions, 2 bouquets garnis,1 chicken stockcube.
Method:
Cover the meat with water and bring to the boil. Remove the scum and half the water. Add the lentils, sliced onions and sliced carrots as well as the bouquet garni. The lentils should be covered by 2 cm of water no more. Cover and cook on the lowest setting for 2 to 3 hours. Check and add water if required.
Delicious served with strong mustard. It will look somewhat like this.
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Hello!
A couple weeks ago I promised to share some of my gran’s recipes. She had 8 kids, a husband and a mother to feed on one salary so she had to make her money go as far as possible. She also really enjoyed cooking and liked making things that were tasty as a sign of love. She grew up in Midwestern USA so I guess you could characterize most of her cooking as typical 1950’s American heartland cooking. Enjoy!
*Grandma Kay’s Chicken & Dumplings*
You’ll need: (For chicken soup) 3-4lb stewing hen; 2-3 celery stalks; 2-3 carrots; 1/2 onion; 1/4 cup barley; salt & pepper to taste. (For dumplings) 1&1/2 cups all purpose flour; 1/2 cup yellow cornmeal; 1 tablespoon baking powder; 1 tablespoon dried dill; 1 cup plus 3 tablespoons half & half (half whole milk, half cream); 1 teaspoon salt
Chop veggies coarsely and put in a large pot with the whole chicken & barley, covering with water. Boil, then simmer until the meat is very tender. Let cool; remove meat from bones and put back into pot with veggies & barley. Let sit on low heat and add dumplings (which can be made while chicken is cooking, as below).
For dumplings: Into one bowl mix flour, cornmeal, baking powder, salt & dill. Stir in half & half until mixture has a thick dough consistency. Using a wooden spoon (or soup spoon), scoop out 10-12 dumplings from dough mixture and add to pot over chicken soup.
Once dumplings are added, simmer for about 10/15 minutes (covered), until a knife stuck into a dumpling comes out clean. Add salt & pepper to taste.
Enjoy!
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