Tuesday 9 August 2011

Rick Stein's Spanish Lentils..perfect for a weekend lunch!

I love Rick Stein.  I've been watching his Rick Stein's Spain greedily over the last few weeks and, at the end of every programme I say to David...we really have to go to Spain...sadly, we can't...well, not right now at least.  

In the last episode Rick made a gorgeous looking lentil dish with spanish ham and tomatoes and all I could think of was...I need a big scoop of that!  The recipe calls for a few ingredients that I wasn't prepared to go out and buy (budget budget), like wine and Serrano ham, however...with a few 21st century urban housewife tweaks I was able to substitute chicken stock for wine, and streaky bacon for the ham.  As for the lentils, I already had a huge bag of Puy lentils at home, so used those instead of the larger, flatter brown lentils suggested...so, perhaps not entirely authentically Spanish, but...tasty nonetheless.  


We devoured these lentils with toast and sardines, it was perfect! 

11 comments:

  1. I've been enjoying the new Rick Stein series...although I do spend quite a lot of it resenting the fact that I don't have his job!!

    Sx

    ReplyDelete
  2. Wish we got that show here...I love Spanish food. One of our favorite restaurants in Portsmouth is a wine bar that serves tapas. This dish is right up my alley, thanks for the recipe.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I have missed this series, but here in France I rely on Rich Stein for a great many fish ideas, and timing my crab and lobster!
    And you should go to Spain, the North is just wondeful!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Seren...I know! I would love to be paid to travel and eat....

    Sue...it was a great series! haha I used to live in Portsmouth UK!

    A Trifle...he is pretty much the best when it comes to fish!

    OBaCS...it was pretty amazing!

    ReplyDelete
  5. I've been watching Rick Stein's Spain too. Love him and I really want to go back to Spain. This lentil dish looks utterly delicious.

    ReplyDelete
  6. My MIL in London has been telling me about this show (though we don't get it where we live), and this recipe looks delicious! I'm lucky enough to have a kid who loves lentils, so I've just printed it off to try tonight. I'll be tweaking it too tho, using puy, bacon and regular paprika. Wine is so expensive where I am, and large vine-ripe tomatoes unlikely, so I might just replace them both with a tin of tomatoes... budget gourmet!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Michael...as soon as he started making it I knew it was a dish for me!! yum yum!

    Little Macaroon...thanks for your comments! In my opinion budget gourmet is gourmet at its best!! I was tempted to throw in a tin of tomatoes too...But I had some toms and half a chicken stock cube on hand! :)

    ReplyDelete
  8. Lentils are so healthy for you. Yours look delicious. I am always on the look out for new lentil recipes. I just recently bought some French lentil which are a little different than I am use to.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Lucky me and mr predictable are touring andalucia in September! So excited! Seville is one of our stop offs, yippee. Will bring you some tapas back...

    ReplyDelete
  10. From Beyond...I really love this recipe, try it with the Puy lentils it worked really well!

    Hilsters...I am super jealous! I'll be quizzing you about it in October ;)

    ReplyDelete