Last Night's Dinner 6

Sausages and Lentils

Before I get started on the recipe, just a acknowledgment and note of thanks to everyone who has subscribed recently - there have been more of you than usual thanks to lovely mentions from the likes of

India Knight

. All free subscribers should expect fairly long posts on a variety of pressure cooker related subjects, deep dives into methodology and a lot of seasonality. There are also regular “Pressure Cooking the Books” posts, when I review and pressure cook from cookbooks which have conventional recipes to show you how to convert them. It is my aim to give all pressure cooker users the knowledge to work out what they can do in a pressure cooker and how to convert all their favourite recipes. These “Last Night’s Dinner” posts are for paid subscribers only, but there is always a lot of information before you hit the paywall so they are (I hope!) still worth reading. Anyway, thank you all for being here! Onto the recipe…

To be strictly accurate, this was not actually last night’s dinner, but from the night before. I admit, this is not really food that suits the season - it is a classic winter dinner in this house. But the wet, colder-than-we’re-used-to weather on Saturday merited something hearty. We ate a sunny yet comforting soup for lunch - the recipe for which will be one of several in a long, free to all post on new season corn later this week - then the sausages, meant for the freezer, were cooked with a big pile of black lentils I’d batch cooked on another day.

Usually when pressure cooking a braise of sausages and lentils, I cook everything together, including the dry, unsoaked lentils. This gives the sausages a brown crust but with a soft texture which is almost akin to the sausages you get in a tin. Which totally have their place (I admit that at one distant point in my life I used to covet Heinz beans with sausages, a better comparison would be the sort of sausages you get in jars of cassoulet), but this recipe has a shorter cook time so the texture is firmer. And as this recipe uses lentils which have already been cooked, you can substitute any cooked pulse in their place including beans - the cook time will be the same.

If you wanted to use dried lentils instead, go for 200g and double the amount of liquid. And cook for 10 minutes, natural release. In this instance, if I am using a deep enough pressure cooker, I might also steam potatoes on top in the steamer basket, for mash or a buttery crush. Whole or halved depending on size and unpeeled.

You can also add any vegetables you like. I had a load of spinach to use up so just put it on top of the sausages. You could use any other greens or cubes of frozen spinach instead.

Ingredients

1-2 tbsp olive oil

8-12 sausage, depending on appetite/size

2 red onions, cut into wedges

3 garlic cloves, finely chopped

1 tsp dried thyme or oregano (or use fresh if you have)

1 tsp smoked paprika

1/2 tsp chilli flakes or powder, or hot paprika

100ml red wine

2 tbsp tomato puree

500g cooked lentils (I used black, just use the sort that keep their shape)

200ml chicken or beef stock or water

100g fresh spinach or frozen equivalent

Herbs for garnish (I used dill, but parsley good)