When on a winter's night ...
A soup for weary travellers, and more ideas to cook and read this month
Welcome to my weekly Letter from Nettle & Quince, in which I share stories, articles and recipes, as well as restaurants, books, exhibitions, that inspire through the seasons.
Some of the things published in the past few weeks:
7 good things in January — Spiced okra martinis and a good pair of scissors, my monthly capture of the best things to remember January by.
A recipe | Melinda’s salmon stew — a 5-ingredient recipe and the New York story with which it is intricately linked.
It’s free so please do share, and a heartfelt thank you to everyone who has.
One day we decided that soup would be the ideal supper with which to welcome arriving guests. I can’t now remember whether it was family coming for Christmas, or, like now, friends gathering in a chalet after protracted trips to reach our skiing congregation, but it has become a thing — our instinctual arrival dish is soup. There’s a medieval-esque tinge to it, the image of a weary traveller falling off their horse in an oil-lit twilight, stumbling into the inn.
At the risk of using all the clichés, it’s hearty, it’s warming, but, also, it’s pretty uncommitted. Unlike a prepared dish — or, god-forbit, a full multiple course meal — there’s no pressure. You can have one bowl, or three. Soup has no timing, it’s amenable to the vagaries of scenic detours, unexpected stops, traffic delays. It will always be accompanied by bread and cheese, pickles, charcuterie, preserved fish maybe, of which you can eat as much or as little as you feel, no one is checking.
LENTILS WITH DIOTS SAUSAGES FROM THE SAVOIE
It is a reminder, barely a recipe, as you will see, which doesn’t make it any less useful. The slightly unfair caveat is that the soup is exceptionally good with diots sausages from the Savoie. It’s unfair because we aren’t in Savoie anymore, and diots don’t appear to be a widespread export. Of course, any very good sausage will do, and I imagine including a few smoked Polish sausages would be ideal.
Serves 6.
The quantities are flexible, they’re an indication.
2 onions
4 garlic cloves
2 carrots
2 branches of celery
(1/2 medium sized celeriac — celery root — would be delicious too if available)
Olive oil
400g lentils
Salt
1 bay leaf
4 to 6 diots de Savoie or other good sausages, a mix of smoked and unsmoked
Peel and finely chop the onion. With the blunt edge of a knife, smash the cloves, peel, and roughly chop the garlic. Peel the carrots, cut them lengthwise in half or quarters (depending on the thickness), and slice thinly. Wash and finely slice the celery. If using, remove the tough outer layer of the celeriac and cut into thin slices of a similar size to the carrots.
In a large saucepan heat a little olive oil, add the onions and let them sweat, stirring occasionally, until they start to turn golden. Add the garlic and other vegetables and let those sweat for about 5 minutes, stirring a couple of times to make sure they don’t stick to the pan. Now add the lentils, give them a stir with the vegetables, and cover generously with cold water. There should be at least three cm of water above the lentils. Add the bay leaf and a small fistful of salt and slowly bring to a boil over medium heat.
Once the soup starts to simmer, add the sausages, whole. Check the amount of liquid as it cooks and add water of necessary.
Let simmer for 30 to 40 minutes. Remove the sausages, cut them into chunks, and return them to the pot.
Serve with mustard.
We were in the Alps, in a house whose weathered balcony overlooks a low cut valley toward the gentle slope of a familiar, moderate peak beyond which, just one winding bassin away, lies the massif of the majestic Mont Blanc. It’s a house which was a barn which my aunt and uncle bought in the sixties. It was transformed then, but neither the chipped orange Formica kitchen cupboards nor anything else much has changed in the nearly forty years I've been spending holidays there, with family, and friends, and friends that became families, and families that became friends.
TO COOK
Not only did I immediately make a note to share this recipe the moment I saw it, but a day or two later a very good friend forwarded it to me too, with the note ‘I think this may be your kind of recipe.’ She knows me well. Let this be the mark of a double endorsement. An inspired twist, anchovies on toast recipe by Mat Lindsay. [Guardian]
I like the story of this streamlined one-pot, weeknight adaptation of Hainanese chicken rice. Recipe here. [Both NYT unlocked]
A yogurt spinach and lentil soup that feels as February might — tart, green and bright like the hint of a spring promise. [Nigel Slater in the Guardian]
But when the mood is still more firmly anchored in winter, this leek and parmesan pie. [Also Slater in the Guardian]
TO READ
This is a such good story. ‘Hippy, capitalist, guru, grocer: the forgotten genius who changed British food.’ [Guardian]
Daydreaming for a moment with the New York Times’ 52 Places to Go in 2024. [NYT unlocked]
I also like this idea — Chantilly and other ideal towns for ‘commuting’ to European capitals. [Guardian]
And hot on the heels of the pumpkin spiced latte and other aberrations, here comes the braised pork latte. [CNN]
February feels timid, a bit like the squeezed-down end of an accordion; time skips a beat, holds its breath, ahead of the ravenous exhale induced by March — Spring!