New Year’s lentils with cotechino

All over Italy, at New Year, cotechino is served with lentils. The lentils can be made the day before: reheated, they are even better. With small lentils, such as those from Castelluccio, there is no need to soak them.

Ingredients for 6

• 350 g dried lentils, small ones if possible
• 1 precooked cotechino, about 500 g
• 1 onion, 1 carrot, 1 celery stalk
• 1 garlic clove
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 tablespoon tomato paste (optional)
• About 1 litre hot vegetable stock
• 4 tablespoons IL CONTE Blend, plus a drizzle of IL CONTE Raggia single variety to finish
• Salt and pepper

Method

1. Rinse the lentils in cold water and pick out any impurities.
2. Chop the onion, carrot, celery and garlic and soften them gently in the Blend, in a pan, for about ten minutes.
3. Add the lentils and bay leaves and stir for a couple of minutes. Add the tomato paste, if using, and cover with the hot stock.
4. Simmer with the lid on for 35–45 minutes, until the lentils are tender, adding stock as needed. Salt towards the end.
5. Meanwhile cook the precooked cotechino as the packet says, usually immersed in water in its wrapping.
6. Cut the cotechino into thick slices and serve it on the lentils, with a drizzle of raw Raggia and some ground pepper.

The right oil

The Blend for the soffritto, and at the end the Raggia single variety raw: its pepperiness cuts the richness of the cotechino and gives the lentils aroma.

Photo: Andrea Tosatto, Wikimedia Commons, licence CC BY 2.0.