DF9: Mexican Lentils with Pineapple and Banana, Chicken Sausages, Baby Zukes

I know you are wondering if I have lost my mind, combining lentils with pineapple and banana. There are some Mexican recipes I have seen over the years that combine fruit with savory ingredients, like dried beans, with one of my favorites being pork with Manchamantel (table-cloth stainer!) sauce, that includes pineapple, mango and chiles. This recipe is from Sheila Lukins' All Around the World cookbook. I noticed it on the way to the sweet potato salad recipe and decided it was worth a try.

Believe it or not, the lentil dish was absolutely scrumptious. Among the many leftovers in the fridge, the lentils are what I chose for lunch today. Sheila pairs the lentils with a tomato sauce enriched with golden raisins, onion and garlic, and then adds the pineapple and banana at the very end of cooking. It has a very bright, sprightly feel to it and was perfect paired with some Cilantro Chicken sausages and baby zucchini.



I noted that aside from the onions and garlic there were no seasonings in the tomato sauce, and so I took matters into my own hands, with good results, I am happy to report. So here is my adaptation of Sheila's recipe.

Mexican Lentils with Pineapple and Bananas by DomesticMuse

Ingredients:
8 oz. dried lentils, picked over and washed well.
1 t. salt
6 c. chicken stock or water or a combination of both
2 ribs celery with leaves, halved
1 carrot, trimmed and halved
8 sprigs Italian parsley
2 T. extra-virgin olive oil
2 medium onions, chopped
4-6 cloves garlic, minced (mine were huge, so I only needed 4)
1 28 oz. can diced tomatoes
1/2 c. golden raisins
2 t. cumin
1 t. ground coriander
1 t. ancho chile powder
salt and black pepper to taste
1 20 oz. can pineapple tidbits, with juice
2 underripe bananas, peeled and cut into 1/2 in. dice

Place the lentils in a saucepan with the chicken stock or water, celery, carrot, and parsley. Bring the lentils to a boil, reduce the heat to medium low and simmer, uncovered, for 20 minutes, or until the lentils are just tender. There will still be some liquid in the pan.

Drain the lentils, remove the carrot, celery and parsley, and set the lentils aside.

While the lentils are cooking, heat the extra-virgin olive oil in a large deep skillet. Add the onions and cook until tender, about 7-8 minutes. Add the garlic and cook for 2 more minutes.
Add the tomatoes (undrained) to the pan, and add the raisins, cumin, coriander, and ancho chile powder. Simmer uncovered over medium heat, stirring occasionally, for about 10 minutes. Add salt and pepper to taste.


Stir in the pineapple and its juice and cook for 5 minutes. Add the bananas and cook for 2 more minutes. Gently fold the lentils into the mixture.

I decided that a nice glaze would be tasty on the sausages. I browned the sausages in a skillet sprayed with non-stick spray, and when they were done, I removed them from the pan. To make the glaze, I melted 2 T. butter in the skillet, and added 2 T each of mango chutney and guava jelly, and 1/2 t. smoked paprika. I added the sausages back the pan and let them baste in the glaze for about 5 minutes before serving. It was really a great combination of flavors and we thoroughly enjoyed the sausages!



This was a great quick meal packed with flavors! I loved the contrast between the sweet and the savory in the lentils, and the sausages were an easy-to-prepare treat. The baby zucchini weren't such a big hit. While I ate mine with relish, DC would not touch his.

DC's plate:

Roast Salmon with Warm Lentil Salad

This is a big favorite of my DS. Hee, hee-- he's 1/2 French Canadian on his dad's side, and has always loved French food-- I guess it's in the genes. Salmon and lentils are a classic French combination. This recipe is a definite keeper-- not only is it really delicious, I can usually get it on the table in an hour or less. I enjoy salmon not only because it tastes good, but also because it tastes like home. Isn't it amazing how evocative taste and smell can be? One taste of salmon and I'm back in my grandmother's kitchen.

Whole Foods had both Atlantic and Sockeye Salmon available, and I forgot to specify which I wanted, so I ended up with the Atlantic salmon. It's so much paler in color than the Sockeye! I would have said something, except I had asked the fish person to remove the skin and she had already started cutting when I realized I didn't want the Atlantic! While the Atlantic salmon is very tasty, I still prefer the sockeye. I guess it's because that's what I grew up eating.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, my Nation, the Anishinaabe live mostly in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and North Dakota. We are also known as the Ojibwe and the Chippewa, but our name for ourselves is Anishinaabe, which means "the original people." Anyway, my dad was born on a reservation in Minnesota, but during the 2nd World War, my family was relocated to the West Coast.

Port Orchard, Washington is "home" for my large extended family (I have about 50 first cousins!). My sister was born at the naval hospital in Bremerton, where my grampa worked. We lived with my grandparents in Port Orchard when I was very small, and some of my most vivid memories are of my grandfather making popovers for breakfast and my grandmother cooking Sockeye salmon.

Whenever I go "home" to visit, I always try to stop by the Pike Place market in Seattle and get a whole salmon cut into steaks and put on dry ice to take back with me. I truly feel like I have a treasure with me, and I ration the frozen salmon steaks out so they last as long as possible.

This particular recipe is from Sara Moulton Cooks at Home and it features salmon fillets with Lentilles Du Puy-- the tiny, black-ish green lentils the French are so enamored of, and rightly so!


I love them too. They have a nice peppery flavor, keep their shape when cooked, and have a somewhat firmer texture than regular brown lentils. The lentils combine wonderfully with a mustard vinaigrette and some crispy pancetta. Together, the salmon and the lentils are sublime.

Here is what you will need to make

Roasted Salmon with Warm Lentil Salad

1 c. green French lentils, lentilles du Puy
½ t. kosher salt
2 oz. pancetta or bacon, finely chopped
1 small onion, finely chopped
1 garlic clove, minced
4 6 oz. pieces center-cut salmon fillet, skin removed
6 T extra-virgin olive oil
2 fresh lemon juice
Additional kosher salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
2 T. white wine vinegar
2 t. Dijon mustard
2-4 T chicken stock
2 T chopped fresh herbs, such as chives, parsley, tarragon, or basil

1. Place the lentils in a large saucepan and pour in enough cold water to cover by 1 in. Add the salt and bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce the heat to medium and simmer until tender, 20–25 min.
2. Meanwhile, cook the pancetta in a small skillet over medium heat, stirring often, until crisp, 3–5 minutes. Remove with a slotted spoon and drain on paper towels.
3. Pour off all but 1 T fat from the skillet and add the onion and garlic. Reduce the heat to medium and cook, stirring often, until softened, about 5 minutes. Remove from the heat and set aside.
4. Preheat the oven to 400F. Arrange the salmon in one flat layer in a shallow roasting pan. Drizzle with 2 T of the olive oil and the lemon juice. season with salt and pepper.

Bake until barely cooked through, 10–12 min.

5. Drain the lentils well and return to the saucepan. Add the vinegar and mustard and season with salt and pepper. Stir in the pancetta, the cooked onion mixture, the remaining ¼ c. olive oil, and 2 T of the chicken stock. Stir well and add more stock if necessary to make a moist lentil mixture. Stir in the herbs at the last minute.

I know this isn't the most beautiful looking thing in the world, but trust me, the taste of this lentil salad more than makes up for its drab appearance.

Serve each piece of salmon with some of the lentil salad.

I like serving this dish with some kind of garlicky greens on the side-- in this case, chard was on special at WF so we had a combination of red and rainbow chard sauteed with garlic in olive oil. We are all very fond of chard, so much so that I almost don't mind how long it takes to wash and chop it for cooking! It cooks down so much you need LOTS. DS and I love ours with umeboshi plum vinegar on it, but I usually serve DC's plain (he's not so adventuresome as my DS and me!).

Here is the "recipe" for the chard (this is for you, Donna! :) )

Here is DS's plate, up close and personal! He went back for seconds on the lentils, and ate every scrap of his chard

!

Bon appetit!

Bon appetit!

Moros y Cristianos, Pork Chops and Plantains

I've had some porkchops sitting around in my fridge needing to be cooked, and some ripe-ish plantains on the counter, so that seemed like a great excuse for another Cuban food extravaganza, thanks to Nathan's blog and all his great recipes!

To go with the porkchops and plantains, I decided to make Nathan's moros y cristianos, a wonderful black bean and rice dish. The exact recipe is here. I made mine on top of the stove instead of in a rice cooker, so it was a little different technique-wise than Nathan's recipe.

Here's what I did.

Nathan's Moros y Cristianos

The ingredients include:

black beans
salt
long-grain white rice (I had to use medium-grain, as I had run out of long-grain)
extra virgin olive oil
1 chopped onion
1/2 green bell pepper, chopped
crushed garlic
bay leaf
cumin

The first step is to pick over the beans and wash them very well.


Next, I put them in a cooking pot I had sprayed with non-stick spray, and added water (Nathan said 5 c. water for 1 c. beans).



I added about 1 t. of salt, too. Next, bring the pot to a boil over high heat, reduce the heat to medium low, and simmer for about 50 minutes.


After 50 minutes, I tested the beans, and they were juuuust right! Tender, but not falling apart. You can tell they are about there if you blow on the beans and the skins crack:

The brand of beans I bought was Goya, and they are usually pretty fresh. Older beans would take longer to cook.

Now, we need to save the bean cooking liquid to cook the rice in. Nathan says to reserve 3 c. of cooking liquid. I drained the beans over a bowl and poured the liquid into a glass measure. Ooops, I only had a little over a cup of liquid left! I had to add some water to bring it up to 3 c.




The next step is to wash the rice to prep it for cooking. It's important to wash the rice well to get rid of as much excess starch as possible. Here's what the water looked like after the first rinse:

You can see it's pretty cloudy. I washed it several more times, going through 10 or 11 changes of water. Finally the water was pretty much clear:


Now it's time to make the sofrito. I sauteed the chopped onion, bell pepper and crushed garlic in olive oil until tender and fragrant.


Now add the sofrito, cumin, salt and bay leaf to the rice in the pan.

Add the cooked, drained beans:


Finally, add the reserved bean cooking liquid:


Cover the pan, bring to a boil over high heat, reduce the heat, and cook over very low heat for 15 minutes. After 15 minutes, remove the pot from the heat and allow it to sit, undisturbed, for 5 minutes. Then check the rice for done-ness.

PERFECT!


This was SO DELICIOUS!

While the rice was simmering, I started the porkchops. Again, this is Nathan's recipe, and it ROCKS! So simple, and so scrumptious!

I smashed 5-6 cloves of crushed garlic, 2 t. of salt. and 1 1/2 t. cumin together in a small bowl to make a paste:


Then I added the juice of 2 fresh limes to the paste, and rubbed the porkchops with this mixture.


Now the porkchops are ready to be panfried. I fried them over medium heat in extra-virgin olive oil, about 10 minutes per side.

Once the chops were done, I removed them from the pan and added 2 medium onions, sliced, to the pan drippings and sauteed them until they were very soft. This is about half-way through:

Once the onions were soft, I deglazed the pan with the juice of 1 fresh lime, and placed the porkchops back in the pan on their little bed of fried onions.

Platanos Fritos (Fried Sweet Plantains)
While the chops were cooking, I started the plantains. I have never successfully made fried plantains before, so I was keeping my fingers crossed! Nathan's recipe was very helpful.

This is what my plantains looked like.

Some were not completely dead ripe. I bought these last weekend on Sat., so they had been sitting on my counter for 9 days!

To peel them, I made several cuts lengthwise through the peel, and then eased the peel off with my fingers. In places not all the peel came off, so I had to cut it off with a sharp knife. (This happened with the less-ripe ones.)

Here are my little naked plantains, ready for slicing.


I sliced them on the bias, but I think I cut some of the slices too thin. Oh, well-- I guess I just need more practice!


Following Nathan's advice, I heated canola oil in a relatively small pan, to save on oil. Looking at Nathan's photos, I think I should have used more oil, enough to cover the plantain slices.

Nathan's plantains:

My plantains:

Nathan's plantains:

My plantains:


All things considered, the plantains turned out pretty well, although some were just a bit woody.

DC was very happy with his meal: