Sounds wonderful, right? Warm, comforting, exactly the sort of thing you’d like to curl up with on a cold day in November. The recipe, taken from Katie Lee Joel’s The Comfort Table, seemed straightforward enough: green lentils, andouille sausage, aromatics, kale, broth.
But unfortunately Trader Joe’s doesn’t carry green lentils. In fact, my Trader Joe’s doesn’t carry ANY dried lentils – only bags of pre-cooked beluga lentils. Nice for a quick munch, not so great for soup since a long slow simmer is required to bring together all of the flavors.
So I stopped by my local Giant Eagle, the standby supermarket for most of us in Western PA, to pick up green lentils, and wound up coming home with dried split peas. Not exactly what was called for, but they passed my test: Legumes? Check. Greenish in color? Check. Slightly firmer than regular lentils (which is what distinguishes green lentils from their counterparts)? Check.
Four hours later I was standing over a pot of what could have easily passed for green concrete. There was barely any cooking liquid left. The peas were still not cooked through. The sausage, which had been simmering in the soup for hours, had rendered its flavor to the little bit of broth that hadn’t evaporated, leaving the meat hot but nearly tasteless.
Sigh. So the lesson learned is: Substitutes are fine if the recipe is old hat, but don’t try a new dish without having the proper ingredients on hand.
Coming up in disaster #2 – burned sugar!
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