Bacon and Lentil Stew

A variation on this BBC recipe. I put it together to make use of some donated bacon.

May be able to find all of this even in a corner shop,

Ingredients

• Olive oil

• 2 onions, chopped to thumbnails or less

• 2 garlic cloves, fine chopped

• Hot chilli powder, 1 teaspoon

• 4 rashers bacon, peeled and squared to a thumbnail

• Red lentils, third/half bag

• Tomatoes, 1 tin

• Spinach, 1 tin, drained

• Stock, jelly vegetable, 3/4 litre

Tools

• Knife and board to chop onions and garlic

• At least mid‐size pan

Make

1. Heat the oil, fry the onions but don’t colour (cover the pan or salt)

2. Stir in garlic and bacon, cook to one song. Onions should have lost white

3. Add lentils and tomato, then stock

4. Bring to the boil then hard boil for at least one song

5. Simmer at least two songs more

6. One song before intending to eat, stir in spinach and season

Note 1: you must boil lentils hard for five minutes, or you will make everyone ill Note 2: a stew like this gets better the longer it is cooked, and better over days. So don’t worry about cooking time

Variations

• The garlic I can get is forced and so weak and naff. We bunged half a garlic sprout in

• Don’t compromise on the stock. I’d be dubious about stock powders or cubes. I think good stock is probably helpful here—the original recommends home‐made

• The original used parsley, which is good but I’d go for fresh. I would avoid dried parsley as, dried in the little pots, it’s not good. Any green you have spare

• On the same theme, I used fresh‐ground pepper (I hate the stuff in those little plastic tubs—pepper will not keep like salt)

• Original recipe recommended half‐pulverising, but stirring and mashing got it to what you see in the photo, which I think is better

Discussion

This caused me to rethink what can be appealing in cooking. Outside of a culture, red lentils are no sale. Also, the stew is not overly spicy. Only explanation I have that it has heavy flavour and colours, and eats like substantial food. Even if not artful. Given that it’s cheap as anything, fast to make and low on cleaning, this will be cooked again, may even become a go‐to.

References

Original recipe (with home‐made stock and parsley),

https://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/low_fat_bacon_and_lentil_02962

Feedback

People commented on it, and it became legend.