Pork Sausage, Green lentil and Red Wine Braise

This is another one from a Delicious magazine, that I changed up a bit.  I used the thermo as an extra pair of hands to chop the onions and garlic.  I think my onions were extra strong - when I took the lid off the thermo, it felt like someone had poked something into both eyes, hard.  The fumes were dreadful.

So, ingredients:

1 tbsp olive oil
40 g butter - salted, unsalted, I don't think it makes a massive difference
3 garlic cloves - these seem to have become massive just lately, so I think I used one, but it was a monster
100g serrrano ham, or pancetta or bacon
1 carrot
2 celery sticks
2 cups red wine
2 lemon thyme sprigs - I prefer lemon, and thats what I have growing
1 400g tin of lentils, you could use 2, the recipe says 2, but I didn't want to freak the family out by overdoing it.  Subtlety is the key as far as legumes are concerned at our house.  Rinse and drain them
600g of pork sausages, whatever kind you prefer, we got pork and fennel.
Mashed potato to serve

Use thermo to chop onion and garlic cloves.  8 seconds of speed 5 and check.  I'm less proscriptive now I'm comfortable with the machine.  Or hand chop them, if you prefer, either is fine, I just hate chopping onions.

Fry up the onion and garlic and ham/pancetta/bacon with oil in a heavy pan.  You could do this in the thermo, I didn't because I wanted to use it for something else, and because I like onions fried on the stove. About 6 minutes

Chop carrot in the thermo, try not to turn it into carrot juice, a lower speed (5) is better than blitzing it into oblivion.  You want bits, not mush.

I chopped the celery with a knife, it's neater and I'm less likely to make celery juice by accident.

Add carrot and celery to the onion mix and cook gently for 8 or so minutes.  Mixture should be lightly brown

Add red wine and bring to simmer, cook for 6 - 8 minutes until liquid is reduced by half.

Add thyme and lentils.  Cover with a lid and cook gently for 20 minutes, until lentil have absorbed most of the liquid.

Remove from heat and stir through a tablespoon of butter.

While the lentil mix is cooking, fry up the sausages separately and organise mashed potato and any other veges.  Slice sausages and stir through the lentils and serve.

I always forget how good this is.  Will the kids eat the lentils?  Will I like the sausages?  But we always like it, and we're always hugely surprised by that.  Maybe now it's here on the blog, I will remember.