Pickled Pork with Lentils
From the one star french chef Patrick Asfaux
Cooking time :
Total time :
- 600 gr of spare ribs, slightly salted
- 1 knuckle of ham, slightly salted
- 1 cooking sausage, weighing 450 gr
- 1 onion, spiked with 3 cloves
- 1 large bouquet garni
- 1 bayleaf
- 8 gr of pepper, roughly crushed (with the back of a pan)
- 500 gr of green lentils, soaked 2 hours in cold water
- 100 gr of small pearl onions, peeled
- 100 gr of tiny bacon strips, smoked and scalded
- 5 cl of of mustard vinaigrette (optional)
- 30 gr of fatty bacon, cut into tiny strips
Progression
Cook the bacon strips and the pearl onions in a saucepan.
Sweat the mixture for 5 min and then add the lentils, bayleaf, some pepper and cover with twice the volume of water. DO NOT SALT !!!
Keep cooking for approximately 1/2 hour and taste the lentils from time to time. Once they are tender you may add some fine salt.
There are 2 ways you can serve this dish:
You may either place the drained lentils in a dish and then add the pieces of meat and sausage on top... or you may serve the meat separately and serve the lentils with some vinaigrette, as well as some chopped herbs.
You may also serve these lentils with a nice grilled salmon steak or with an escalope of duck foie gras, simply divine! You may also blend the lentils to make a soup, adding some diced smoked duck (it is also excellent if you can add some diced and cooked foie gras too).
PS: Many colleagues recommend not to soak lentils but I believe that soaking is an essential step in order to succeed in giving this dish a smooth consistency.