Friday 23 September 2011

No actual dragons were harmed in the making of this meal

Sorry for disappearing for so long, especially on the tail of a post about suicide - I hope nobody jumped to the wrong conclusion there! It's been a bit of a stressful time, and to be honest might remain so for a while yet. Posts are going to be a bit sporadic, but for the sake of making life as normal as possible I'm going to try to post when I have the time and energy.

Today's recipe is known chez Duck as green dragon pie. I have no idea if it has any other official existence. The original inspiration was a 'red dragon pie' - made with red lentils, kidney beans, carrots and tomatoes - that I had in a pub a long time ago and must have reproduced thousands of times over the years. I can't remember how green dragon pie came about, except as a way of having a bit of variety. I do remember dishing it up for some friends, along with a red dragon pie, when cookware constraints meant we had to do two seperate pies rather than one that was big enough for everyone.

This dish can be a bit of a faff if you do everything from scratch, although (as with most recipes I post here) well worth it if you do enough to last for two meals. I've had convenience versions before, involving various combinations of tinned green lentils, mushy peas and instant mash - one of the better things I can do in a rush!

Ingredients:
4 medium potatoes
Green split peas - start with half a margarine tub of peas, fill to the top with water, leave in fridge overnight. (Or use mushy peas from a tin)
250 grams of green lentils (dried weight)
Mint (fresh or dried, optional)
Seasoning to taste (I use celery salt and black pepper)
2-3 onions

Cut up, boil and mash the potatoes
Boil the dried lentils and soaked split peas for half an hour or so with the mint and seasoning - the peas will go mushy.
Fry the onions (can also add some fresh or frozen spinach if you have it) and stir into the mixture
Spread the mashed potato over the top and bake in the oven at 200 for half an hour or so - basically until the top of the mash is crispy and brown. You can stick some tofutti slices on top of the mash.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

This looks tasty! I make my red dragon pie with aduki beans and I like the idea of a green dragon pie, too!

Penny