Lentil Stew with Meatballs
A lentil and fennel stew with sausage meatballs, based on a Good Food recipe and adapted for the Instant Pot.
Ingredients
| 450 g | low-fat sausage | |
| 1 tsp | 5 ml | fennel seed, crushed |
| 1 tbsp | 15 ml | olive oil |
| 1 | onion, finely chopped | |
| 2 | medium carrots, finely chopped | |
| 1 | fennel bulb, trimmed and finely sliced | |
| 2 | garlic cloves, crushed | |
| 100 ml | full-bodied red wine | |
| 200 g | puy lentils | |
| 1 tbsp | 15 ml | tomato purée |
| 850 ml | hot chicken or beef stock | |
| 0.5 | juice of lemon | |
| — | parsley, chopped, to serve |
Instructions
Method:
- Squeeze the meat from the sausages into a large bowl. Add the fennel seeds and mix well with your hands. Shape the meat into 16 walnut-sized balls.
- Heat 1 tsp of the oil in a large non-stick frying pan. Fry the meatballs for 5 mins, turning regularly, until golden but not completely cooked through. Remove to a plate.
- Add the rest of the oil to the pan, tip in the onion, carrots and fennel, cover and let the veg sweat over a gentle heat for 10 mins until softened. Stir now and then.
- Uncover the vegetables, turn up the heat and let them start to colour here and there. Stir in the garlic, sizzle for 1 min, then splash in the wine and let it reduce by half. Stir in the lentils, tomato purée and stock. Cover and simmer for 25 mins or until the lentils are almost tender. Add the sausageballs, plus a splash of water if the pan is looking a little dry. Cover and simmer for a further 10 mins until the meat is cooked through. Squeeze over the lemon juice, season to taste and scatter with parsley to serve.
Cook's note (translated from Bulgarian): Lentil stew with meatballs and fennel following this Good Food recipe, with modifications: instead of sausage I used frozen meatballs for frying; I had no red wine, so I used white. I fried the meatballs and set them aside, then sweated the vegetables for about ten minutes as in the recipe. Then I turned off Sauté, added the tomatoes, the stock (I didn't add 850 ml, but about 500), and the lentils soaked for 15 minutes, on the pressure program for 10 minutes. After that a QPR (quick pressure release), I added the meatballs for another 6 minutes under pressure. Again QPR, the juice of half a lemon and a little parsley. Basically per the recipe. While it was cooking the fennel smelled very strongly and I had big doubts whether it would be edible, especially since everyone was waiting for me to cook dinner. But in the end it turned out quite a pleasant meal.