As the season rolls over, we're swinging between cool and warm. There's days where the ocean is still warm and the sun is bright and hot well into the early evening. We're starting to crave stews and soups, as if our bodies know it's time to roll into Autumn.
Besides, there's only so many garden salads one can eat - tomatoes, cucumbers and lettuce from the garden are amazing but I'm almost at that point where I never want to eat another one again. Cue last winter's traybake lentil 'ragu'. And by the time I get round to publishing this post, we're probably well into hot food season and I've likely made this for the twentieth time.
I've written about it on HIVE before, using an Ottolenghi recipe which has a thousand ingredients and is expensive and complicated to follow. This time I've simplified it, omitting ingredients but following a similiar concept to create a meaty, earthy tasting stew that satisfies cravings for something heartier than cucumber.
Before you do anything, cook some brown lentils. I cooked two cups with six cups of water in the rice cooker whilst doing everything else. Too easy.
The trick to the meaty and earthy taste to this recipe is in the miso, tamari and cummin. There's also a secret ingredient that might suprise you. Don't be fooled by the 'chicken' stock powder - that's a plant based chicken 'style' stock that we love in this household (I often have to stop my salt addicted husband dipping his fingers into it).
Let's start with the roasting vegetables first. Turn the oven on and roast some mushrooms and garlic in olive oil. As the hubs can't really tolerate garlic, I tend to put the cloves in whole for the flavour, then remove them, but you don't have to. I like to roast the mushrooms first so they kinda crisp up a little rather than go soggy with the tomatoes. You can - and should - use tons of mushrooms and if you have them, lots of different sorts. Porcini of course is amazing but it's too expensive here for me to use. If you have it powdered or dried, add later. Then, add tomatoes - I put in a heap of garden fresh tomatoes - say a few cups worth.
Let the tomatoes roast away whilst you prepare the flavour part of the dish.
In a jug, mix a cup of water with:
2 tbsp ground cummin
1 heaped tablespoon of miso
2 tbsp tamari
1 tbsp stock powder (you can add more to your taste later)
Any powdered mushrooms you might have (or add the dried ones to the pan when you add the lentils etc)
2 heaped tablespoons of tomato paste
Now, add your lentils and the above mix to the pan with the roast tomatoes and lentils.
Here's the kicker - you're going to think this is super wierd but I assure you it's a PERFECT addition. I promise.
Add half a can of coconut cream.
Yep, you heard me! Now it doesn't make it taste like coconut at all - I PROMISE!!! It just gives it a delicious creaminess and a dimension to this dish that makes it just that little bit more wow!
You'll want to bake it for another half an hour til the edges go all brown. I served mine with smashed new potatoes and rosemary - basically you boil the potatoes first, smash em a bit with a fork, add some olive oil, salt and pepper and some rosemary and roast that til brown. If you put them in the oven at the same time as the last bit of the lentil ragu you should be good to go.
Now why's it called a ragu? Isn't a ragu made of beef? Well, really a ragu is a stew that is cooked long and slow for the flavours to come out. Cooking it this way in an oven might sound labourious but it's not really - you just add stuff to the pan, set an alarm, do some other stuff and come back to add more things. Too easy.
What's your favourite vegetable or lentil based stew?
With Love,
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