Sausage and lentil casserole

This is our second recipe using an ingredient bought from the recent Norwich Food & Drink Festival.  We loved the Jubberwacky wholegrain mustard we sampled at the festival so we treated ourselves to a jar and we've now tried it out in one of Mr Vegan Man's favourite recipes.  WOTVM isn't that keen on lentils so is less enthusiastic about the dish, but Mr Vegan Man loves those little pulses and so really loves this one.

It is a relatively quick and easy dish to cook midweek and is packed full of flavour.  Despite its comforting and hearty flavours it is actually fairly light to eat and so is a good dinner all year round.  To the recipe below you could add mushrooms for an extra bit of earthiness and substance.  We used fresh sage and thyme as we've been getting into our gardening this year and have lots of fresh herbs growing in pots at the moment, but you can use dried as a substitute as per the recipe below. 

If you love your meat then substitute pork sausages for the veggie ones we've used.  For this recipe we've used Linda McCartney sausages and they are our favourites for this particular recipe, but you could use another brand if you wish.  If using Linda McCartney sausage, this dish is vegan.

Ingredients (serves two):

4 veggie sausages
100g green lentils
100g savoy cabbage
 Half a medium onion
1 stick of celery
1 clove of garlic
400ml medium cider
200ml vegetable stock
Two sprigs of fresh thyme (or 0.5 tsp dried thyme)
8-10 fresh sage leaves (or 0.5 tsp dried sage)
2 tsp wholegrain mustard
Handful chopped parsley to garnish

Preparation and cooking time 45 minutes.

Pre-heat your oven to 180°C then rinse your lentils in cold water before adding them to a pan of boiling water.  Boil vigorously on a medium to high heat for 10 minutes and then reduce the heat and leave them to simmer for a further 10 minutes.  This will leave them a touch undercooked but they will continue to cook in the oven with the rest of the dish so will end up well cooked through.

Whilst your lentils are cooking, brown off the sausages in a frying pan and then place in a small roasting tin.  Chop the onion, celery, garlic and cabbage and make up the vegetable stock in preparation for making the casserole.

Fry off the onion, celery and garlic in a saucepan over a medium heat until they are beginning to soften.  You don't want too much colour on them so stir regularly and allow them to naturally soften.

Add the 400ml of cider to the pan and bring the heat up slightly so that the cider reduces down, you want it to reduce to around half of its original volume.  This will intensify the flavour and cook off the harsh alcohol.

Once the cider has reduced, this will take around 6-8 minutes, add the vegetable stock, cabbage, sage and thyme to the pan and season with salt and pepper.  Allow the mixture to come up to the boil and leave for 4-5 minutes then add the lentils, which by now should have finished cooking, and transfer the mixture to the roasting tin with your sausages and place in the pre-heated oven.

Remove from the oven after 15-20 minutes and finish the dish by stirring through 2 teaspoons of Jabberwucky wholegrain mustard.  If you really can't get Jubberwacky then use a different wholegrain mustard, although we must say this is a particularly good wholegrain mustard.  Garnish with a handful of chopped parsley.

The dish can be served with mashed potato, a nice bread or with soft polenta.  WOTVM had some lovely wholemeal sourdough whilst Mr Vegan Man went for polenta (WOTVM isn't keen on polenta).

Give the dish a go, it's very tasty!  Let us know how you get on by leaving a comment below or you can contact us via email.