SC - lentils! lentils!

[Kirrily Robert]

In lists.sca.sca-cooks, you wrote:
>> >1) Tell me all about Lentils! How common were they outside the Muslim regions?
>> >  What other
>> >good recipes exist? Are there any Lentil addict support groups? 
>> I've got an excellent non-medieval recipe for a lentil soup with
>> rosemary, lemon and spinach, if anyone would like it.
>
>Yes, please!

No problem.  My apologies for the vagueness in quantities -- I'm working
from memory here.

1 to 1 1/2 cup red lentils
2 to 3L vegetable stock
1 tin tomatoes, chopped (or equivalent amount of fresh tomatoes)
1/2 cup chopped parsley
1/2 cup bulgur wheat
1 bunch spinach, rinsed and roughly chopped 
1 onion, diced
olive oil
2 cloves garlic, minced or finely chopped
juice of 1-2 lemons
metric buttload of rosemary (fresh or dried) (I use about 2 tablespoons
fresh, or one dry)

Cook the lentils in the vegetable stock.

Meanwhile, saute the garlic and onions in the olive oil in a large pot, 
then add in the wheat, tomatoes and parsley.  Stir until it starts to 
dry out.  By this point your lentils should be just about done, so upend 
the lentils and vegetable stock into the big pot.  Add the lemon
juice and rosemary, and leave to simmer until all flavours are blended.
If you're using dried rosemary, this may be quite a while, but it won't
hurt.  If you leave it to simmer a long time, you may want to add extra
lemon juice to taste towards the end.  Just before serving, throw in the
spinach and mix it through the soup so it wilts, but doesn't get
overcooked.  If you're going to have leftovers, do this in the bowls
rather than in the pot.

Serve with turkish bread or pita bread and yogurt.

The heavy rosemary flavour is *wonderful*.  This is the only vegetarian
soup I could get my carnivorous ex-housemate to eat, and he thought it
was almost as good as a meat dish.

And while we're at it, here's another fantastic soup, and this one uses
ingredients available in the medieval period!  I got it from a Swedish
friend who had sent me a bottle of booze they call "punsch" and he told
me this was the traditional soup to eat while drinking the booze.

2 cups yellow split peas
stock (vegetable works well, or you could experiment with meat stocks)
1/2 cup ham or bacon (I use a ham hock, but will give the recipe as if 
	using bacon, which is the easiest; you can leave out the meat if 
	you prefer)
1 tablespoon or more of hot mustard (I use most of a small jar, maybe
	about 3 spoons?  2 would be good, I think.  Get the really hot
	English mustard if you can find it, and/or use hot english and
	seed mustard blended together)
1 tablespoon or more of thyme, chopped (I use about 2 spoonfuls of fresh 
	thyme, or substitute dried if I don't have fresh)

Soak the peas overnight then strain them.  In a big pot, fry the bacon
until you have a good puddle of bacon grease.  Take most of the bacon
bits out and put them aside.  Add stock and peas and cook until done.
This could be a couple of hours, depending on how well soaked they are.
You want them to be non-gritty.  Put the resulting peasoup through a
blender to smooth it out a bit, but don't worry about getting it perfect
- -- a little texture is OK.  Add back the bacon bits you reserved
earlier, and put in the mustard and thyme.  Adjust to taste.  I like
mine *really* mustardy and *really* thymey, and I think you will too.
If you're using dried thyme, make sure you simmer the soup until it
softens up and spreads its flavour.

Serve with rye bread and, optionally, vodka.  If you went easy on the
mustard, have some on the side for people to stir through their own
serve of soup.

This soup, like the lentil one above, tastes better if you leave it 
overnight for the thyme (or rosemary) to infuse really well.

K.

- -- 
Kirrily 'Skud' Robert - skud at infotrope.net - http://infotrope.net/
Yea, it is written in the nuts, and say: "sorry, I'm not sure if your
netapp provider is as good as mine."
	-- Megahal (trained on asr) 2000-01-30