Lentejas estofadas

The story

Lentejas, stewed lentils, are everyday food in Spain rather than a dish for any one day. Directo al Paladar names lentils, together with white beans and chickpeas, as the most common legumes of Spanish home cooking, and lists the classic ways of making them: with chorizo, with pork ribs, or plain, as lentejas viudas, widowed lentils with no meat in the pot. Like porrusalda, they belong to the platos de cuchara, the spoon dishes of Spanish home cooking. The magazine Hola presents lentils with chorizo as the stew grandmothers made: small brown pardina lentils, a sofrito of onion, leek, carrot and both green and red peppers, a spoonful of paprika, some tomato, and a ham bone and a cured pork bone simmered with them, with chorizo and morcilla added for the last half hour. Nutrition students at the Universidad Pablo de Olavide publish a lighter everyday version with potato, peppers and optional chorizo that cooks in about forty-five minutes. Soaking is optional and only shortens the cooking, so the stew fits a weeknight. Serve it with crusty bread; left without the chorizo, it becomes lentejas viudas.