a lentil bake

lentil sort of moussaka thing

using up: a mozzarella, half a bag of spinach, some creme fraiche

I’m a big fan of lentils – I just love the texture, and we often have a lentil lasagne or moussaka.  We don’t have a veg box at the moment (I cancelled the one we were using because it wasn’t quite what we wanted, and haven’t started a new one), but on my veg shop yesterday, I bought a couple of aubergines, just so I could concoct this.

I used the last of my Seasoned Pioneers Organic Ras-El-Hanout spice pack; I never buy these as a rule, but this one caught my eye at a food market.  It contains, galangal, rosebuds, black pepper, ginger, cardamon, cayenne, allspice, lavender, cinnamon, cassia, coriander, mace, nutmeg and cloves.  We have most of those on the spice shelves, but not all, and I have no idea of the mix, of course, but I might have a bash … it’s a lovely blend.

Anyway – to the food.  I chopped one large onion roughly, and about five cloves of garlic, and fried them in some olive oil in a cast iron casserole (use a big one – this grows 🙂 until they were just browning.  Then put in about 1/4 of the spice mix (all that was left) and fried that too.

Added about 2.5 mugs of lentils and stirred them round, about 4 mugs of water, and a slosh of red wine.  Shook in some red pepper flakes.  Brought to the boil, then turned down very low and cooked for 35-40 minutes.

While that was going on, Pete finely sliced the aubergine, and fried them till brown in still more olive oil, setting them to drain off on kitchen paper.  I washed the half bag of spinach that needed using, and made a white sauce, using the quarter or so tub of creme fraiche in it, as that needed eating (gave it a nice tangy flavour – I’ll do that again).

When the lentils were done, we did one full tub for the freezer (and it went in – amazing), and ladled the rest into a big lasagne dish.  Covered the lentils with spinach, and grated some nutmug over it – spinach and nutmeg is one of those wonderful combinations.  Next on went the white sauce, and then the fried aubergines.  Last of all, the mozzarella  – two days past its sell-by date 🙂 – was chopped and scattered over the top.

Gas 6 for 25 minutes and out it came.  We ate half of it for supper last night, and it was utterly gorgeous.  The other half has been carefully transferred to a smaller dish, covered with clingfilm, and put in the fridge for supper later in the week.