Spanish-Style Lentil Stew

After the scratch-made lasagna recipe, a much simpler and quicker recipe seemed in order. Lentils make a delicious, hearty winter meal, either lunch or dinner, and they take a lot less time to cook than other types of beans.

The word lentil comes from the Latin lens, and indeed, this bean cousin is shaped like the double convex optic lens that took its name from the lentil.

I’m a big fan of one-pot meals, which this is. Just add the vegetables you like, and you need nothing else nutrition-wise. In this case, I add chopped Swiss chard, which gives the dish an even earthier taste. You can even add other types of beans, just pay attention to the different cooking times. I actually have some chickpeas in the version in the picture. Now, I won’t ever claim that my version of a recipe is the authentic one, but I call this Spanish-Style because of what I consider to be a combination of Spanish flavors – paprika, thyme, garlic, tomato, onion, and sherry vinegar (according to the story, “sherry” is the British pronunciation of Jerez, which is the town in Andalusia where the fortified wine is made; the name Jerez itself comes from Sherish, the name given to the town by the Moors when they ruled the area). I was privileged to live in Madrid for a year, and to me, these flavors evoke it. A big part of the Spanish flavor here also comes from chorizo, which itself has paprika, but for our vegetarian/vegan friends, feel free to leave it out or use veggie/vegan alternatives. I’m also a big fan of garnishes and accompaniments. As Nigel Tufnel might say, they can really push a dish over the cliff.

I like to serve this stew with toasted bread that has been rubbed with raw garlic (a Spanish technique) and sprinkled with olive oil, along with lemon juice, chopped parsley, and a final flourish of paprika on the stew. We’re lucky to have a strong Portuguese presence where we live, so we get good olive oil, good crusty bread, and good paprika, none of which I take for granted. In Spanish, paprika is called pimenton. It has a beautiful crimson color and a deep, smoky aroma. There are sweet and spicy varieties (I go with the spicy), and it really adds a lot to a dish. Until I discovered this ingredient, paprika was basically just for red coloring, but now I know better. I will say that the smokiness of this paprika gets cooked out over time though, so I usually add a bit at the outset, then a bit at the end. Here’s the one I get at our grocery store:

It probably costs 2-3 bucks – well worth it. If you can’t find a good one in your store, I’ll mail ya one!

For the tomato paste, I like to buy it in a tube like this:

I find that I never use a whole can of tomato paste, so the rest always gets wasted. With the tube, you can keep it in the fridge, so it’s always on hand, you don’t have to remember to buy it, and you use however much you need.

So without further ado, here’s the recipe:

Ingredients

1 lb. of lentils

1 lb. of chorizo (not the dried variety)

2 yellow onions

2 ribs of celery

1 carrot

1 red pepper

5 or 6 teeth of garlic

1 bunch of Swiss chard

1 tbsp. of tomato paste

1 tbsp. sherry vinegar

2-3 sprigs of thyme

3 bay leaves

1 bunch of parsley

Good crusty bread

Olive oil

1 lemon

Spanish paprika

Water

Salt

Fresh ground black pepper

Cooking time: 1 hour

Servings: 6

Instructions

1.       Dump the lentils into a colander and make sure there aren’t any pebbles in them. Then rinse them for 10 seconds under the faucet.

2.       Here’s a trick that’s inspired by El Paso, where my girlfriend is from: if you have a gas stove, you can get even more smoky flavor into this dish if you char the red pepper. I do this pretty much any time I cook with a red pepper. Just turn the burner on medium, and place the whole pepper right on it. You can completely char the whole thing, or just get a few char marks on it. The more you char it, the deeper the smoky flavor and the softer the flesh will be. Once you’ve charred it to your liking, remove it from the stovetop. At this point, the inside of the pepper is steaming itself. The more you let it sit like this, the more it will soften.

3.       Dice the onions, celery, carrot. You can scrape off the charred skin of the red pepper with a knife, or leave it on - more char = more smoky flavor. Dice the red pepper. Mince all but one of the garlic teeth (the last one is for the bread). The onion, carrots, celery, and pepper don’t have to be a fine dice, because this is a stew, but the cooking time isn’t so long, so the veg can’t be too big.

4.       Chop the Swiss chard into bite-sized pieces.

5.       Chop up the chorizo into bite-sized pieces. Heat a teaspoon of olive oil in a Dutch oven on medium heat. When the oil is shimmering, add the chorizo to the pot. Let the chorizo cook until it’s golden brown, bits of it start to stick to the bottom, and the paprika from the chorizo starts to release into the oil. Remove the chorizo with a slotted spoon. If you don’t want chorizo, feel free to leave this step out.

6.       Add the chopped onion, celery, carrot, and minced garlic to the pot. With a wooden spoon, stir them around and scrape up any chorizo bits stuck to the bottom. Add a good pinch of salt and several grinds of pepper, along with a teaspoon of paprika. Give it all a stir, and let the vegetables cook, stirring occasionally, for a few minutes, until they start to become translucent. Then add the red pepper, since it’s already cooked a bit. If you opt not to char the pepper, add it when you add the onion, celery, carrot, and garlic.

7.       Make a little space in the pot, and add the tomato paste there, to let it toast for 30 seconds and develop a deeper flavor. Then stir it around with the vegetables.

8.       Add the lentils to the pot, along with enough water to cover everything by about an inch. Give it all a stir. Strip the leaves from the thyme sprigs and add them. Add the bay leaves and the sherry vinegar. Give it all another stir.

9.       Bring the pot to a boil, then add the Swiss chard. It will look like a lot when you add it, but as it wilts, it will shrink down. Stir and incorporate the chard into the contents of the pot as best you can. It’s ok if most of the chard kind of stays on top of everything to start. Once you cover it, it will steam and wilt more.

10.   Cover the pot, and reduce the heat to low. Let it cook for ten minutes, then check to see if it needs any water. The chard should now be incorporated into the stew.

11.   Cover the pot, and let it cook for another ten minutes. Check it to see if the lentils are done. I like lentils to be tender, but intact and still with a little bite. It’s good to keep an eye on them at this stage, because they can go from undercooked to puree pretty easily. If they’re not to your liking, cover and cook until they are. Check the seasoning – add salt and pepper accordingly. If the stew is too watery, cook it for a few minutes uncovered, so the water evaporates.

12.   Give a piece of bread a nice toasting. It needs to be a bit toasted or crusty, not only for texture, but so that the garlic will rub off on it. Cut the end off the last tooth of garlic and rub it into the bread, then drizzle the bread with olive oil. Chop up some parsley and sprinkle it over the top of the stew. Slice a wedge of lemon, and squeeze some juice on top.

Buen provecho!