I’m late, I’m late! There was no way I was going to get this week’s French Fridays with Dorie recipe done in time – it was a crazy busy week, and to be honest, I wasn’t convinced about lentils. Sheepish grin. But then I saw a decently priced and sized piece of salmon (it’s really expensive here in SA) and I decided to be brave. I’m pretty glad I did – it was good, the salmon was so easy (I’d been a little nervous about salmon, cooking fish always makes me nervous) and the lentils were impressive. They’ll be back.
Of course, once I had the salmon and I’d decided I was going to give the lentils a fair shot, I had to find lentils! Lentils du Puy, or French green lentils, to be precise. Apparently not so easy – we couldn’t find them and so we went with brown lentils as a substitute. Not sure what the difference is, aside from colour and where they are grown, any ideas?
I halved the recipe, at least in terms of lentils, since it’s just the two of us, and I have to say I was amazed at how the lentils grew – for a while I thought we might be filling up on snacks!
Anyway, on to the making of this dish… It starts out with a rinse of the lentils, checking for any stones that may have been missed in the sorting process, and then a quick boil and another rinse. The lentils are then joined in a pot by some chicken stock, a whole onion with a clove embedded in it, some chopped up carrots and celery. A familiar soup base, nothing scary there. This simmers until the lentils are tender and then the stock is drained and reserved, the veg is chopped up and a quarter of the lentils are pureed and added back to the remaining lentils and veg.
After the lentils have finished cooking and before you puree them, the salmon is seasoned and roasted at a high temperature for 12 minutes. Twelve minutes! Excellent.
We enjoyed it, we’ve learnt that we like lentils (good news for the diet, since they are low GI!) and I can cook salmon, it’s not so scary anymore!
Thanks Dorie!
Isn’t is great when you learn to cook something new? Your dish turned out
lovely and very delicious looking. I do love lentils and salmon, unfortunately,
I thought this recipe to be quite bland. The combination is great, but I would
like to try it with more spice.
Salmon is so expensive here that we seldom treat ourselves with it – but it is so worth it
This recipe seemed to be a hit with a lot of people this week.
The de Puy lentils are a bit of a challenge to find up here too, but they were a nice treat – we really enjoy them.
Salmon is expensive here in OK too! Unless I buy farm raised in Chile or Malaysia or somewhere. Fresh caught is so much better but so much higher priced. We don’t have it as often as we’d like but this was a great way to prepare it!
Lovely sounding dish. I love Salmon….but so expensive….and I also love lentils. Also cannot find puy lentils. Woolies used to sell them in bottles a few years ago but they disappeared and I just dont see them. xx
Glad to know I’m not the only one to have struggled…maybe it’s time to find a supplier in France
Agreed
xx