Freestyle Friday #14

I think this is the first Freestyle Friday dish that I can actually call a 'dish', or 'recipe'. As in, it isn't just assembling a load of things to make a salad or something. And while that is always good, I am quite proud of this one. Once again, the original vision in my head had totally changed by the time it got to the table, but I don't see this as a bad thing anymore! I would tell you how I got from my orignal idea to what I actually ended up eating, but I'm pretty sure you don't want to be sitting here for hours...

So anyway, this is what I ended up with. A rather nice hash of couscous and red lentils, mixed with my Spicy Banana Chutney, lemon juice and an egg. Garnished with onion crescents. I had planned to serve the egg on top, so after I had cooked the lentils and couscous in chicken stock, in a saucepan, I just broke it on the top and put the saucepan lid on to cook it. Then I remembered I hadn't mixed in the chutney or lemon juice. Whoops. While I was pondering what to do, I realised that when I scooped the mixture out of the saucepan into a bowl, the egg would probably break up anyway. Or at the very least, it would end up skewiff and sideways and not perched neatly on the top. So I mixed it in with the chutney and lemon juice. It was quite nice to come across bits of egg through the spicy chutney and fresh lemon. The best way I can describe the end result, is that it reminded me of pease pudding. Which, as pease pudding is made from mashed lentils, not totally off the mark.

Some more of the motley crew of ingredients.

Just how I wanted them- in the end. Originally I was going to thiny slice and sweat them for a long time. But hey, if you can't try something different on Freestyle Friday, when can you?!

This is what happened when I tried to take a photograph of the egg cooking! You have to be extremely quick to take photos of things that are hot, it must be done before the lens steams up! I got one of the onions though, so I wasn't a total failure.

Hearty and filling, but still summery. Delicious.