Lentils with Chard and Carrot

Heat a heavy pot over medium heat with 3 tablespoons of olive oil until the oil thins out and shimmers.

Peel the 4 garlic cloves and the onion, cut them into small dice, and cook them in the oil for 5–6 minutes until soft and translucent.

💡 You want them soft, not browned. This base carries the whole stew, and burnt garlic will be the only thing you taste.

Peel the 2 carrots and cut them into 1 cm half-moons. Add them to the pot.

Cook the vegetables together over low-to-medium heat for 4–5 minutes, stirring now and then, until the carrot edges start to soften.

Grate the tomato on a box grater, holding the skin flat so you are left with the pulp and the skin in your hand. Add the pulp to the pot.

💡 Grating is the Spanish shortcut to a peeled, seeded, finely chopped tomato in about thirty seconds.

Turn the heat up high and cook the tomato for 5–6 minutes, until the liquid has boiled off and the mixture darkens and pulls away from the pan.

💡 This is the step people rush. Raw-tasting tomato makes a thin, sour stew; cooked-down tomato makes a deep, savoury one.

Wash the 6 chard leaves and separate the thick white stems from the green leaves.

💡 Stems and leaves cook at completely different speeds. Treating them as one ingredient gives you either raw stems or dissolved leaves.

Cut the stems into dice and add them to the pot.

Add the bay leaf and the teaspoon of pimentón and stir for a few seconds only, off the boil.

💡 Pimentón burns almost instantly in hot oil and turns bitter. Stir it in and get the liquid on top of it right away.

Tip in the 300 g of lentils, pour over about 1 litre of water so everything is covered, and season with salt.

Cover the pot, bring it to a simmer and cook on low heat for 45–50 minutes, until the lentils are tender all the way through.

💡 Keep it at a bare simmer. A hard boil knocks the lentils apart and turns the pot into purée.

Shred the reserved chard leaves into fine ribbons and stir them in, adding a little more water if the pot looks tight.

Cover again and cook everything together for a final 10 minutes, until the leaves have wilted down and gone glossy dark green.

Taste, adjust the salt, fish out the bay leaf and serve in deep bowls with a few parsley leaves on top.

💡 Like most bean pots, this is better on day two. Reheat gently and add a splash of water — it thickens overnight.