Sausage and Lentil Casserole

It’s a little late in the year to be making such a comforting, wintry dish but sometimes an earthy casserole is what you want.

Ingredients

8 sausages (pork, vegetarian, whatever you fancy)
150g Puy lentils (you could use other lentils if you like, but Puy lentils have a lovely earthiness that others don’t)
1 onion, roughly chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
A large handful of mushrooms, halved
3 or 4 sage leaves
Olive Oil
A few splashes of Worcestershire sauce (optional)
A pint or so of vegetable stock (powdered will do)

The Cooking

In a casserole dish, first fry the sausages until the skins are nice and brown (they don’t have to cooked through yet). This is to give them a good colour, otherwise if you just stick them in the casserole they’ll be a rather unappealing grey when they’re cooked. It’ll also leave burnt sausage bits on the bottom of the pan (this is a good thing).

Set aside the sausage and with the heat on high chuck a small glass of water in the pan and scrape up all the burnt bits. When all scraped up, pour into a cup and set aside.

Now soften the onion in the same pan with a little olive oil. When they’re looking soft, add the garlic, mushrooms and the sage leaves. Cook for another couple of minutes, then add in the rest of the ingredients, including the burnt-bits-liquid. Bring to the boil and simmer for about an hour, checking every 15/20 mins that it’s not dried up and adding more water if necessary.

That’s it. Eat and enjoy.