French petit salé, with Le Puy green lentils
The perfect comfort food for a cold, late Fall or Winter dinner. It combines basic salty and warm flavors to talk straight to your stomach, and heart. A great alternative to other lentil soups.
Serves: 8 (it can be 8 times you; it’s okay not to share)
Preparation: 15 minutes
Cooking: 90 minutes
Food is essential to our body to operate, and has a key role regarding our mood. Who hasn’t become bored of eating the same dish, every week, despite it consisting in a delicious meal? There are a lot of things in our lives we have little to no control on: missed deliveries, traffic jams, bad weather, and so much more that is no fun to write about. There’s an English idiom, popularized by Benjamin Franklin, which says that nothing is certain except death and taxes. Food we consume, either through dining out, shopping, or cooking, falls into the category of what a lot of us (sadly not everybody) on this planet can control. Haven’t you ever felt down, and searched for a dish to energize you? Or look forward to a special event to celebrate with a delicious meal? The present recipe is about one of my favorite comfort foods for Fall and Winter times. Be it because I feel cold, because I’m tired, because I had a bad day, or just because I want a break, this recipe takes care of me. And I wish it does the same for you.
Traditional French petit salé combines different pieces of salty pork meat. By definition, this is easy to veganize, as there are plenty meat substitutes around there, smoked tofu being a good candidate to replace salty pork meat. Add some sausages, and you obtain a decent alternative. French petit salé aux lentilles adds vegetables, and lentils. For this recipe to match the original one, both in term of taste and texture, I’m relying on famous Le Puy green lentils.
About Le Puy green lentils
Le Puy green lentils are small, green lentils, who are named after the specific geographical region they originate from: Le Puy in Auvergne region of France. They differ from lentils and pulses used in dal and most lentils soups in that they retain their shape when cooked. Sure they grow, though they don’t turn into a purée when cooked (some would argue that chana dal also retain their shape, though they can easily be smashed). Like for wine, the soil which food grows on and from plays a key role. Le Puy green lentils grow on a basaltic plateau, due to Auvergne region having had an important volcanic activity in the past millenia. It gives the lentils a distinctive flavor, so they can hardly be replaced in recipes — should you have no option, choose blonde lentils, and crush light, fragrant black pepper corns.
Ingredients
500 g dry Le Puy green lentils
300 g vegan sausages1
200 g smoked tofu2
2 carrots ~ 220 g
2 big yellow onions ~ 380 g
1 soup spoon of cumin seeds
4 bay leaves
4 cloves
5 soup spoons of Maggi Arôme seasoning (or soy sauce, it works as well since both brings umami flavor)3
10 soup spoons of oil (I used sunflower oil; any vegetable oil with a light flavor will do)
3 L of water
Preparation
This recipe lists only few preparation steps, however they require to peel and slice, which always takes time. Please share your tip if you’re achieving this faster than me (15 minutes for those below). Although you can start heating your cookware as soon as you’re done with the preparation of onions, it’s always a good idea to complete the steps below before moving to the Cooking ones — it’s only a suggestion, exercise good judgement, and proceed according to your experience.
Peel the onions, cut in halves; insert your knife on the outer side of each half to make a small, 1 cm deep cross-shaped mark; insert a clove in each half
Peel the carrots, cut them into 0.5 to 1 cm wide slices
Cut the sausages into 1 cm wide slices
Dice the tofu block according to the visible stripes on it — yes, not all cuboids will have the same volume
Grind the cumin seeds coarsely
Cooking
I use two cookwares for this recipe. The main one, which will contain the final dish, is a stainless steel high-sided pressure cooker. Although I close it at some point, I don’t increase the pressure to make it whistle, so any high-sided pot which you can cover will do the job. The second one is a non-stick wok, which is needed in parallel of the main one. The recipe calls for adding lukewarm water at steps 5 and 6, so you’ll either need a third pot, or a kettle. As suggested in the Preparation steps, complete all of them before moving with the Cooking ones below.
Heat your first cookware to 40% of the maximum flame/power; wait for it to turn hot
Add 5 soup spoons of oil, and the onions; cook for 10 minutes, stirring from time to time to avoid the onions stick to the bottom
Heat your second cookware to 40% of the maximum flame/power; light-fry the tofu cuboids and the sausage slices in 5 soup spoons of oil, covered, for 20 minutes
Add carrot slices, ground cumin seeds, and bay leaves to the main pot; cook for 10 minutes, stirring from time to time; you’ll notice the onion halves will start to roast at their bottom, and to split apart
Add 5 soup spoons of Maggi Arôme seasoning, lentils, and 1.5 L of lukewarm water; stir, and cover for 20 minutes
Increase the heat to 70% of the maximum flame/power; add the tofu cuboids, the sausage slices, any oil left in the second cookware, and 1.5 L of lukewarm water to the main pot; cover, and cook for 45 minutes
Once you’ve completed the Cooking steps, stop he heat, and leave the pot covered until you serve. Since it contains a fair volume of liquid, it can take hours to cool down to a temperature at which you can put it into your fridge. On the other side, it means it will stay hot, then warm, till your guests come to enjoy the dish. Given it doesn’t feature a lot of spices, its taste won’t strengthen the longer you keep it refrigerated. If you’ve added more (see tip below), you’ll notice it will indeed develop a stronger flavor over time.
Similar to what I mentioned last month in my recipe Yangzhou (Cantonese) fried rice, adapted, this is also one of the dish that my wife and I used to bring to friends’ place when it was our turn to cook. Although I wrote in the beginning it’s okay not to share, it’s also kind to do so. Actually, I took these pictures when I cooked it in October, at the request of my wife whom it was the turn to provide food for her board game group.
This dish re-heats nicely, on slow flame/power. It also freezes and unfreezes very well. I usually cook a bit more than needed, on purpose so I can spare one or two servings for later.
Enjoy!
If you’ve tried the recipe, and would like to comment - whether you loved it, or hated it - please do so. I’m welcoming ideas, even if these are non-vegan recipes I’ll have the challenge to “veganize”.
Here’s a tip before you go
The recipe as presented here is light on the spice front. You can power it up by adding peeled garlic (sliced, crushed, whole, or all of these) at step 2, and ground coriander at step 4. Feel free to revisit it with your favorite spices. Maybe you’ll discover sumac gives it a great twist (disclaimer: I haven’t tried). Maybe you’ll like to explore which other vegetables are common in the cuisine of Central France (Puy-de-Dôme, Auvergne). Beware, this is far from being a vegan-friendly region of France (though it’s so beautiful that it’s worth traveling through). A lot of recipes are, at best, vegetarian — read: waiting for veganization!
Be cautious: vegan sausages can be made of wheat, soy, or other ingredients which are known allergens; always check the ingredient list of what you use
Be cautious: tofu is made of soy, which is a known allergen
Be cautious: Maggi Arôme seasoning is made from wheat, and soy sauce is made from wheat and soy; wheat and soy are known allergens