Lentils with garlic, rosemary and chargrilled blood oranges.

Continuing my obsession with tarocco oranges, this very simple dish goes very well with Easter roast lamb

I am rather late to the Easter table – no, I haven’t been scoffing whole Easter eggs at a time, am far too busy to fit in a full-on diabetic coma, I’ve been driving to Italy and back this week. Not planned, and not heartily recommended, but at least I now know it’s possible in my electric car: three years ago, it took a week and 14 nervous breakdowns just to get through France.  But it was not good for productivity.

However, if you have decided to thwart Nigel Farage, and are not planning to spend the whole of Easter eating  entire chocolate eggs by the barrow-load, this very simple lentil dish would be extremely good with roast lamb.

Lentils with garlic, rosemary and chargrilled blood oranges.

The combination of the charred orange with the rosemary and garlic is particularly good, and the slightly sweet, slightly bitter of the orange and garlic is excellent with the lamb, and charring the orange dries it which is a better texture for the lentils.   

You don’t have to cook the lentils from scratch, but if you have the time, cooking them with the whole spices is worth it, and they only take about 20 – 30 minutes.

Serves 4

• 200g small lentils – castelluccio, le puy, or beluga black are particularly good.

• A pinch of black peppercorns

• 1 teaspoon of whole coriander seed

• Seeds from 5 cardamom pods

• 1 tarocco or blood orange

• 4 cloves of garlic

• A sprig of rosemary

• Olive oil

• Salt

1. Boil the lentils with the whole spices and a teaspoon of salt until they are al dente, and drain really well.

2. Slice the orange – about half a centimetre thick and put the slices on a hot griddle pan.

3. Turn the heat down and cook on a low to medium heat until each side is streaked brown and a little crispy round the edges. Allow to cool and cut into segments – about 4 - 6 per slice.

4. Pour some oil into a very small pan. Peel and crush the garlic, and finely chop the rosemary, and add to the oil. Heat very gently.  . As soon as it starts to sizzle, take it off the heat: you don’t want the garlic to be raw, but as soon as it starts to colour it gets bitter, and not in a good way.

5. Pour the oil over the lentils, add the the pieces of orange, season with salt if needed, and mix really well.

Diva Notes

Olive oil

The exact amount depends on your approach to downsizing. And given  the  current price of olive oil, your budget.  If you are not spending the whole day eating chocolate, you can afford to be a bit lavish with the oil.