dijon mustard

Lentils à la Dijonnaise (mustard and speck lentils)

The Yummy Lummy Cooking for one podcast
The Yummy Lummy Cooking for one podcast
Lentils à la Dijonnaise (mustard and speck lentils)
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Lentils à la Dijonnaise (mustard and speck lentils)

I have a feeling this is the first time I’ve cooked lentils.

My friend GC regularly shares with me her photos of salmon, broccolini and lentils meals and I’m always a bit jelly because in my mind lentils require a lot of effort and I’m a somewhat lazy cook. GC’s lentils always look very attractive on her plate with her salmon and broccolini.

Lentils à la Dijonnaise

Anyway, GC has a friend who shares healthy eating tips, and lentils are a feature of her healthful eating plan. So I figured, why not give lentils a try.

I searched YouTube, and one of the channels I subscribe to has a lentils recipe which I thought would taste good, mainly because it has bacon (speck) in it. 😉

This bloke’s name is Stephane, and he’s French, but he lives in Australia, and he runs an on-line French Cooking Academy.

The recipe for this dish on YouTube.

Eating a healthy diet is essential. I was reading a paper today from the Journal of the American Medical Association. The focus was relatively lean Chinese people and their body mass index and how it correlated with liver and bile system disease. Pang Y, Kartsonaki C, Lv J, et al. Observational and Genetic Associations of Body Mass Index and Hepatobiliary Diseases in a Relatively Lean Chinese PopulationJAMA Netw Open. 2020;3(10):e2018721.

I really need to keep an eye on my BMI.

Ingredients

  • 300 grams of green lentils
  • 900 mL of tap water
  • One carrot (sliced)
  • One onion (halved)
  • Two cloves (to penetrate the onion)
  • One sprig of thyme
  • Two bay leaves (or two leaves of Bay if you’re fancy pants)
  • One clove of garlic (or more if you have no feelings for people around you)
  • 150 grams of smoked speck (I didn’t weight how much speck I used, I just went with the vibe)
  • Two tablespoons Dijon mustard
  • Salt and pepper to season (please use iodised salt)
  • One nudge of butter
Green lentils, Dijon mustard, Onion, Cloves, Thyme, Garlic, Speck, Bay leaves, and Carrot
Water, lentils, carrot, onion with a clove stuck in, bay leaves, thyme, and crushed garlic

Instructions

  • Rinse the lentils in cold water and then put the lentils into the saucepan.
  • Then add the water (three times the volume of lentils, e.g. 900 mL of water to 300 grams of lentils).
  • Bring the water and lentils to the boil.
  • Remove the scum floating on the water with a spoon. I have no idea what difference this does, but apparently, French cooks do this. Not that I care about what French cooks do or think. 
  • Slice the carrot with a sharp knife or a mandolin and be careful not to slice your fingers open.
  • Half the onion with a sharp knife and again be careful. Blood in the lentils may add a little saltiness but is not usually required.
  • Insert a clove into the top of the dome of half of the onion.
  • Add the carrot, onion with the clove in situ, garlic, bay leaves, and thyme.
  • Add the speck,
  • Mix everything so that the water covers everything.
  • Do not salt early, salt after 20 minutes because the lentils will not cook properly (or so they say).
  • Cook for 30 minutes with the lid on with low heat. 
  • After 30 minutes, remove the aromatic vegetables but not the carrot.
  • Remove the speck and pan fry it for the finished dish.
  • Take some of the hot fluid and mix with the dijon mustard to dilute the dijon mustard.
  • Then pour the creamy thin dijon mustard back into the saucepan and gently mix everything. 
  • Serve the lentils in a bowl.
  • Add a nudge of butter. What is a nudge of butter? I have no idea. I used 50 grams of butter because that seemed like a good amount.
  • Add the speck to the bowl. 
  • Garnish with something green to make it pretty because all TV and YouTube cooks will tell you, “we eat with our eyes”. Now, what a stupid thing to say. I mean, sure you can pour small quantities of a liquid over your eyes to permit the collection of nutrients in your conjunctivæ. The nutrients will travel via capillary action down through the nasolacrimal ducts into your nasal passages where if you swallow hard, you can ‘consume’ the liquid. This approach is hardly an efficient way to eat a bowl of lentils.
  • Suppose you want to do as Stephane does add some wholegrain mustard for a contrasting taste and mouthfeel. I didn’t do this.
  • Add some pepper.
Cooked lentils and speck with a nudge of butter and discarded vegetables

Questions

What is speck?

In my simplistic way of thinking, speck is fancy bacon. It’s smoked pork belly.

There is also Italian speck (Speck Alto Adige PGI).

The nice thing about buying a prism of speck is you can cut slices as thickly as you like.

As you can see, I like to slice my speck to about 1 cm thick.

Speck
Lentils à la Dijonnaise

What are lentils?

Lentils are a legume. Legumes are essential in agriculture for the nitrogen-fixing bacteria which live symbiotically with the plant.

Lentils are an annual plant with a lens-shaped seed.

I didn’t know that Canada and India are where most of the world’s lentils are grown.

Lentils à la Dijonnaise

Are you worried about liver and bile system disease?

I’m prone to metabolic syndrome. I have a strong family history of diabetes mellitus and having been grossly obese in the past, I’m conscious that I need to keep an eye on not getting too much belly fat. My waist circumference and body mass index are features to monitor.

Chinese people have a long history of Hepatitis B virus infection associated-chronic liver disease. Fortunately, I don’t have HBV infection. However, I am unable to demonstrate immunity to HBV despite being immunised many times.

Final thoughts

  • Do you like lentils?
  • What’s your favourite lentils recipe?
  • Do lentils give you a lot of flatus? Should I avoid lighting any matches tonight? 💥
  • If you live in New South Wales, Canberra, Victoria, Tasmania, and South Australia, set your clocks forward tonight for daylight saving time which starts tomorrow.

Dijon mustard and chives crusted scotch fillet steak

Scotch fillet steak on a Saturday night is even better if it’s a steak sandwich

I watched a Nicko’s Kitchen video on YouTube recently on how to cook a perfect scotch fillet steak. My technique is slightly different in that I follow the Heston Blumenthal method of rapid flipping every fifteen to twenty seconds.

 

Anyway, I wanted a steak sandwich for dinner. I liked the way Nicko crusted his steak by using Dijon mustard and chopped chives. It looked very pretty. It also added a nice taste too. 

What you’ll need

Scotch fillet steak

Salt

Olive oil

Butter

Thyme

Chives

Dijon mustard

Cracked pepper

Lettuce

Tomato

Swiss cheese slices

Bread roll

Here’s what you do

Slice the bread roll into halves

Apply some Dijon mustard to the inside of each half

Add a slice of Swiss cheese

Put the bread under a grill for a few minutes to slightly melt the cheese

Remove some lettuce leaves and wash them

Slice the tomato and allow it to rest on some paper towel

Apple some pepper to one side of the tomato

The steak should have been in the refrigerator for about half a day at least uncovered

Take the steak out at least an hour before you’re ready to cook to get it to room temperature

Rub some olive oil all over the steak

Season the steak with salt

Get a pan smoking hot

Put the steak in the pan and flip every 15 to 20 seconds and cook until you like it

I like my steak rare

Add some thyme and a bit of butter and allow the butter to melt and the thyme to flavour the meat

Let the steak rest for at least 5 minutes

Coat one side of the steak with Dijon Mustard

Flip the steak over onto a plate of chopped chives and coat the steak

Scotch fillet steak with chives and Dijon mustard Gary Lum
Scotch fillet steak with chives and Dijon mustard [Click on the photograph for a full view]
Slice into the desired thickness

Prepare the steak sandwich with the bread roll and melted cheese

Enjoy a nice juicy steak sandwich

Scotch fillet steak with chives and Dijon mustard sandwich Gary Lum
Scotch fillet steak with chives and Dijon mustard sandwich [Click on the photo for a full view]

Parting words

I regularly post photographs of food to Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Please feel free to connect with me on any social media platform.
I also have a podcast. It’s not food related but each show is short and it’s named Medical Fun Facts. You can find it in the iTunes podcast store as well as Stitcher. A show drops every Monday and Tuesday. It has a little cynicism, a little scepticism and occasionally some sarcasm.