A Grape Picker's Lunch! Sausages and Lentils With Thyme and Wine

"I am lucky enough to live in the Cognac and Pineau grape growing area of South West France - we also grow grapes for the excellent local (Charente-Maritime) wine in this area. Our woodman, Monsieur Jacquot, has a small chateau with several vineyards, and every year we are invited to join in on the first or last day of the "Vendange" - the grape harvest. And, every year, Madame Jacquot prepares and cooks the most delicious food for all of the grape pickers, family and invited friends. This year (2009) the harvest started on the 1st October, and this is the dish she made for us, served simply with fresh salads, assorted local breads, local butter, cheese and of course local wine, pineau and cognac. I asked her for the recipe and she rattled out the ingredients at a rapid pace, whilst I scribbled them down on the back of an envelope! I have recreated this recipe at home twice now, and this is ALMOST as good as hers is! (Mind you, she set hers out on long tables with white linen and beautiful old vintage crockery.......I found out that the white linen were bed sheets! NEVER used on a bed she stressed, kept for large gatherings.) The key to this recipe is SIMPLICITY and GOOD sausages and wine. I used local Toulouse sausages, meaty and with a high 85% meat content. But you can use ANY good, meaty sausages that you have available locally - I bet high quality venison or Angus beef sausages would be brilliant in this dish. Also, DO try to source “Lentilles Vert de Puy” – green Puy lentils; they make all the difference to this wonderful harvest dish. I hope you enjoy this recipe as much as we did, sitting at the long table in the old barn, under ancient beams and with beaming faces and loud laughter. ( PS: I cut this recipe RIGHT back from 30 people to just 4! Please adjust the amounts to suit.)"
 
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photo by JustJanS photo by JustJanS
photo by JustJanS
photo by French Tart photo by French Tart
Ready In:
1hr
Ingredients:
11
Serves:
4

ingredients

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directions

  • Heat the oil in a large casserole dish such as a Le Creuset or Dutch oven and over a medium heat fry the bacon until crispy. Remove the bacon and then add the sausages, brown them on all sides. Remove the sausages.
  • Add the onion chunks and turn up the heat so that they soften and take on a crispy caramel colour. Put the sausages back into the dish and add the thyme, lentils and garlic, cook for a minute stirring all the time.
  • Then add the stock or consommé and the wine. Lower the heat to a slow simmer and partially cover with a lid. Simmer for 35 minutes, or until the lentils are tender and the sausages cooked through. Season with salt and pepper to taste, and then crumble in the crispy bacon just before serving, with a few more fresh thyme leaves.
  • Allow people to help themselves from the pot in the middle of the table; serve with assorted salads, bread, cheese and a glass or three of wine!
  • Vive la Vendange!

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Reviews

  1. This is another winner from French Tart. Easy and delicious. I omitted the bacon and the taste is still delicious. I think you can also make this with whatever sausage flavor you have and combine with a coordinating herb. I will make this again.
     
  2. An excellent choice for New Year's Eve supper. So easy and low maintenance. The wine adds an interesting flavor. For the two of us we reduced the bacon by half and used three onions. The rest of the ingredients we left the same (the sausages were smallish), and there is a small portion left over. Merci, merci beaucoup!
     
  3. I wish I could give this 10 stars! Hearty, satisfying and delicious. We absolutely loved it! Next time I'm going to try is with duck and cognac sausages. Yum! Thanks for posting!!
     
  4. just lovely!! felt like i was in france again! will definitely make for a long lunch with lots of company :) there was a bit of fat from the bacon which i drained before continuing (might have been the kind i used), and i wasnt sure where i could get a hold of toulouse sausages, so i used a roll of the south african boerewors as i heard it was quite spicy, and it matched really well with the wine and lentils. thankyou!
     
  5. In one word, delicious!! The flavour of the thyme and lentils with the meat is superb. Unfortunately, I didn't have time to take a picture before it had all gone. Thank you for posting FT. Made for Aussie / Kiwi Swap #38 March 2010
     
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RECIPE SUBMITTED BY

<p><strong><span>The sunflowers in the field behind my house in SW France:</span></strong></p> <p><img title=Sunflowers src=http://i146.photobucket.com/albums/r271/copperhorse58/DSCN8221.jpg alt=Sunflowers width=640 height=480 /><br /><strong><span><br /><br />I am British (English-Scottish), but I was born in South Africa and have lived all over the world, including Hong Kong, Germany, Cyprus, USA &amp; Singapore. I have also been very fortunate to have travelled extensively over the years.........I still have wanderlust! <br /><br />I used to be an English Literature &amp; Art History teacher &amp; lecturer; before that, I trained and worked as a Graphic Designer for many years. I now live in France with my husband &amp; my daughter who has just started university in September 2006. We also have one very chatty Burmese cat Willow, who allows us to live with her here! (I used to have three cats, I recently lost Monty, a beautiful seal point Siamese and before that, Rama, who was a debonair blue point Siamese cat - I would love to have another Siamese cat or cats in the future!)</span></strong></p> <p><em><strong><span>This is my Burmese Cat, Willow, sunning herself on the log pile in the kitchen garden:</span></strong></em></p> <p><strong><img title=My src=http://i146.photobucket.com/albums/r271/copperhorse58/ABaconButtyandSundryFoodPhotos34.jpg alt=My width=640 height=480 /></strong></p> <p><strong><span>Here is my lovely Monty, a seal point Siamese, and Willow, sitting&nbsp;in the kitchen garden last year, and a few months before Monty died; he was 18yrs old:</span></strong></p> <p><img title=Monty src=http://i146.photobucket.com/albums/r271/copperhorse58/AbsolutelySinfulStickyToffeePudding.jpg alt=Monty width=640 height=480 />My</p> <p><strong><span>This is my wonderful old boy, Rama, a blue-point Siamese, who died when he was 20yrs old - excuse the old and much sellotaped photo:</span></strong></p> <p><img title=Rama src=http://i146.photobucket.com/albums/r271/copperhorse58/Rama1stOctober2004164.jpg alt=Rama width=517 height=639 /></p> <p><strong><span>My favourite pastimes are: reading, writing, painting &amp; drawing, photography, gardening, anything creative, walking, travelling, dining out and of course COOKING! I love all types of cuisine, but especially Traditional British - and NO it is NOT all bad!! I particularly love food associated with the changing seasons plus traditional feasts &amp; festivals, as well as Slow Cooking. I also enjoy French &amp; North African cuisine, come to think of it, there isn't much I don't like! <br /><br />My husband &amp; I run a Chambres D'Hotes, (Bed and Breakfast) called Auberge de la Fontaine here in beautiful South West France; we specialise in Gourmet Food &amp; Wine Breaks, French Antiques &amp; Restoration courses, French Language courses and French Cookery classes. Our home is completely furnished with Antique French furniture that we have rescued &amp; restored ourselves. Our charming village has one of the oldest Churches in the region &amp; it is famous for its connection with the St.Jacques de Compostella Pilgrimage route, as well as being within the Cognac &amp; Bordeaux wine growing area. <br /><br />We have a wonderful garden where we grow ALL of our own herbs and most of our fruit and vegetables. I specialise in rare, unusual and old-fashioned herbs, which I grow in our walled garden. As well as growing herbs, I also grow many different varieties of lavender, old-fashioned shrub roses and heirloom fruit and vegetables. <br /><br />We have lived overseas for many, many years now - but we both still love going home to Northern England, near Scarborough &amp; York, to visit our family &amp; friends. We also love indulging in dining out when we are there, in a wide variety of EXCELLENT Gastro-Pubs that we have in North Yorkshire; and popping in to have a Pint of REAL ENGLISH ALE in our local pub is a always a must!! <br /></span></strong></p> <p><br /><a href=http://photobucket.com/images/merci%20beaucoup target=_blank><img src=http://i420.photobucket.com/albums/pp287/vi-vie15/Merci/hb09izl7.gif border=0 alt=merci /></a> <br /><br /><strong><span>A Message to all who make and review my recipes! I try very hard to reply to EACH and EVERYONE of you who kindly makes, reviews and photographs my recipes! However, sometimes I am so busy in the B and B, and with other things, that I may be late in sending a personal thank you message, and sometimes I forget completely! I would just like to thank you ALL in advance, and just in case I am late or forgetful in sending a personal thanks. I am always very humbled by anyone who chooses to make one of my recipes, and I love reading the reviews and seeing the beautiful photos that are posted. Merci beaucoup encore! <br /><br />A note about my recipes. All of my posted recipes, whether they be my own concoctions or adaptations from a book or a famous chef, have been tried and tested at least once, by ME! I try to make sure that I am the guinea pig and not you! However, if there is anything you would like ask me about one of my recipes, or a query that I may be able to help you with, please do write and I will try to answer your question as soon as possible. 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