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Posh football food. Poached cod and lentils

I am watching Germany destroy Holland at the euros. Fortunately for me Lisa made me some rather upmarket footy food in the shape of Angela Hartnett's poached cod and lentils.

It was absolutely delicious and even better, capable of being eaten in front of the telly .... Beats a pukka pie or a westlers hot dog any day of the week.

The recipe is from the very user friendly book 'A taste of home' Poached cod and lentils If possible, use French puy lentils or Italian castelluccio lentils for the best flavour – not the little red ones.

You could also make this with butter beans or chickpeas.

 Serves 4

Ingredients
45g butter
1 tbsp olive oil
1 large white onion, diced
1 garlic clove, finely chopped
100g pancetta, chopped
200g puy lentils 
Splash of white wine 
600ml chicken stock 
4 x 130g cod fillets, skinned and trimmed 
2 handfuls of baby spinach leaves 
4 spring onions, chopped 
2 tbsp chopped flatleaf parsley 
Salt and freshly ground black pepper 


For the poaching liquid 


300ml white wine 
1 star anise 
¼ tsp fennel seeds 
5 coriander seeds 
1 thyme sprig 
A few basil leaves 
Juice of ½ lemon 
Method 


Heat 15g of the butter and the olive oil in a frying pan, then add the onion and garlic. 


Cook for 2–3 minutes until the onion is soft and golden. 


 Dice the pancetta into small cubes. Add these to the pan and cook for five minutes on a low heat. Increase to a medium heat, and then add the lentils, along with a splash of white wine. 


Bring the chicken stock to the boil in a separate pan. Add the chicken stock to the lentils one ladleful at a time, just as if making a risotto. Once the lentils are cooked and almost no stock remains, add the rest of the butter and mix well. 


Season with salt and pepper. 


Put the poaching liquid ingredients into a separate pan with 300ml water and bring to the boil. 


Once the liquid is boiling, take the pan off the heat, add the cod and place a lid on the pan. After five minutes, turn the fish over, replace the lid and continue to cook off the heat for another five minutes. 


Add the spinach, spring onions and chopped parsley to the lentils and mix everything together well. Check the seasoning. 


Add the poached cod to the lentil stew and gently warm it through, basting the fish with the lentils.

Comments

Anonymous said…
This was delicious, I looked on your blog yesterday morning for some inspiration for the weekend as we are in the eye of the A level storm and only certain meals will do. This was perfect, requires no eye contact - or surgery, so fork in one hand and chemistry/biology/latin revision in the other - just like watching football! Lulu

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