It's still winter, and so it's still slow-cooking season. This week my daughter and I tried a very easy dish: salt pork with lentils (petit salé aux lentilles). This is a traditional French dish that is often served in cafeterias and such because it doesn't have many ingredients and can cook without much supervision.
The trick is to find a good piece of salt pork, and possibly a nice thick sausage to go with it. You can use any piece of salt pork, depending on your budget or appetite. This time around, I used a piece of pork shoulder, from the top of the shoulder (palette). This is the "blade" or "blade shoulder" in the US and UK systems. If you want to make a true-to-tradition petit salé, you can also add a Morteau sausage.
As always, you start by assembling the ingredients. In this case, I went for a slightly fancy stock, with an eye to making soup with it afterwards. My broth had carrots, onions, black radish, leaks (white and green parts), kohlrabi (chou-rave) with its leaves, pork belly, herbs (parsley, rosemary, thyme), cloves, garlic, and peppercorns. You get to eat all of the vegetables in the end, so it's not a loss... You can stick to carrots and onions if you'd like.
Next step, put the well-rinsed piece of salt-pork in a pan of cold water and bring to the boil. When the water boils, take the meat out and empty the water. Be sure to trim any excess fat off, as it won't be grilling away but rather going into the broth.
The broth ingredients, together with the clove-studed onion.
The trick is to find a good piece of salt pork, and possibly a nice thick sausage to go with it. You can use any piece of salt pork, depending on your budget or appetite. This time around, I used a piece of pork shoulder, from the top of the shoulder (palette). This is the "blade" or "blade shoulder" in the US and UK systems. If you want to make a true-to-tradition petit salé, you can also add a Morteau sausage.
As always, you start by assembling the ingredients. In this case, I went for a slightly fancy stock, with an eye to making soup with it afterwards. My broth had carrots, onions, black radish, leaks (white and green parts), kohlrabi (chou-rave) with its leaves, pork belly, herbs (parsley, rosemary, thyme), cloves, garlic, and peppercorns. You get to eat all of the vegetables in the end, so it's not a loss... You can stick to carrots and onions if you'd like.
Next step, put the well-rinsed piece of salt-pork in a pan of cold water and bring to the boil. When the water boils, take the meat out and empty the water. Be sure to trim any excess fat off, as it won't be grilling away but rather going into the broth.
While the water is boiling, prep the vegetables for the broth, enlist your 4 year old if necessary
Tie all of the herbs into a bundle so that you can fish them out at the end. Note that this doesn't work as well as advertised, and I think I am going to buy one of these soon (or this). This is a good time to teach your child how to tie a knot, without the pressure of rushing off to school in the morning and without being bent over to tie a shoelace.
Put everything back into the pan once the salty water's been thrown out (great task for a small child).
Pour water over the whole thing, cover, and boil slowly for 2 hours or so. Don't worry if the pot is very full: the veggies will shrink over time. You should not add any salt, as the meat will provide all that you need.
Even though this is a stand-alone meal, you can prepare some side dishes in the meantime. We glazed some yellow turnips and and onions. My daughter has become quite the expert peeler over the last month, and so I delegated the turnips to her while I took care of the onions. As it happens, onions will sting your eyes more if you're shorter, as your eyes will be closer to the chopping board. This is therefore not a good task for a 4 year old.
Once again, this is not a dish that looks all that good at the end (so no photo), but it sure is delicious!
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