Dysfunctional Planner

I called my dad to say to ask him how to cook lentil soup. We have a new Asian food store open up and it’s wonderful, fresh fruit and veg laid out like they do in France. A bunch of garlic for £2 , beautiful fruits and then we go to the dried food section and there are bags and bags of beautiful lentils.

In the Seychelles we eat a lot of lentils, it’s a side dish that goes with everything especially fish and curry. It’s like a Dahl but to my dad it’s just lentils. When we lived in Germany he would put beautiful German sausages through out it, these days I put chorizo. He normally used the red lentils but I had green ones I wanted to use so I just made it with that.

It’s a cold rainy day today and I craved lentil soup. So I called my dad just to check how he does it and it turned out great, not picture perfect but tasty and soul food, plus I got to talk to my dad.

It’s a simple recipe,

Boil the lentils till they are soft I add a chicken stock cube to give it some flavour, in a separate pan cook your bacon, sausage ( or don’t if you are vegan) fry your onions garlic and ginger, thyme ( and other spices if you want) then add to the lentils and let it all simmer gently till you are ready to eat, normally takes about an hour from start to finish. I use a spicy chorizo so it comes with a bit of heat but you could have some chilli flakes for more heat. Finish off with salt and pepper to taste!

I ate it for lunch and I will be having it for dinner with some fresh crusty bread and butter. It isn’t a thing of beauty but it does taste wonderful. I love how food can be so evocative. It will always remind me of my dad. We used to eat lots of lentils with bowls of rice.

I am missing my family so much.