Jul 28

Winter warmer - Sausage and lentil casserole

This one is truly delicious and a great winter dish.  We’ve made it once before with rosemary lamb sausages and a stronger beef stock and I found it a bit overpowering.  I think this version is a good balance of flavours.  If you’re not a sausage fan, the lentils on their own are delicious.  If you’re vegetarian, you could omit the bacon and perhaps add carrot or celery to give the lentils added depth.

I am a huge fan of puy lentils (and lentils generally).  I’m trying to become more adventurous and experiment more with different grains, seeds, beans and lentils.  I added chopped kale while the lentils were cooking, and topped with cherry tomatoes at the end.  You could try broccoli, spinach or silverbeet in place of the kale.  Although there are tomatoes cooked into the lentils, I think the cherry tomatoes added a nice sweetness and lightness to an otherwise very hearty dish.

Unfortunately I can’t credit the original version of this receipe – J transcribed it into a notebook some time ago and didn’t make a note of where he took it from.

sausagelentil
Sausage Lentil Casserole
Posted July 17, 2010 by Leah in Posted In:

Cuisines:
Details
  • Prep Time:
    30 min
  • Cook Time:
    90 min
  • Ready Time:
    2 h, 0 min

Ingredients

  • 1 tbsp Olive oil
  • 8 Beef sausages
  • 1 large Brown onion, diced
  • 4 Bacon rashers, chopped
  • 2 cloves Garlic, crushed
  • 2 cups Dried puy (green) lentils, rinsed
  • 2 Bay leaves
  • 3 cups Stock (I used beef)
  • 4 Tomatoes, chopped
  • 1/2 cup Parsley, chopped
  • bunch Kale, chopped
  • handful Cherry tomatoes, halved
  • Salt and pepper to taste

Directions

  1. Preheat oven to 180*.
  2. In a large dutch oven or casserole dish (that you can use on the stove) heat the oil over a medium-high heat.
  3. Cook the sausages, turning, for 5 minutes until browned all over.  Remove from the casserole dish and set aside.
  4. Add the onion, bacon and garlic to the casserole dish.
  5. Cook over medium-high for 5 minutes or until soft.  Be careful not to burn your onion or garlic.
  6. Add the lentils and stir to coat in onion mix.
  7. Add the bay leaves and stock.
  8. Bring to a boil then add the sausages back into the dish.
  9. Cover and cook in the oven for 1 hour.
  10. After 1 hour, remove from oven and add tomatoes and kale.  Add some more liquid if necessary.
  11. Cover.  Cook for another 30 minutes or until lentils are tender.
  12. Discard bay leaves.  Stir in parsley and season with salt and pepper.
  13. Garnish with cherry tomatoes.
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