A Little Chicken For Lentil Love

About author / Amy Powell

World traveler; gourmet 30 minute meals; lover of exotic ingredients; winner on FoodTV's Chefs vs City; graduate French Culinary Institute. Her recipes will tantalize your taste buds.

Legumes seem to forever fall into two categories. Under one column we find the staple food of vegans. Chickpeas, white beans, lentils (oh the lentils!), this is the central source of protein for those who abstain from animal products. The other column could be titled "Beans with Pork." There are those people, particularly from the Southern regions of this country, who would not dream of having a bean or split pea without a juicy ham hock, fat back, or straight up lard to give some flavor and body to the pot.

As I see it, the problem with the first option is that for meat eaters, a pot of legumes can too easily err on the bad side of bland. In the other extreme, a smoked ham hock can sometimes overwhelm the split peas, and lard, though delicious, is not exactly a health food.

Allow me to offer a third category heading: Legumes with Chicken. Though not very common in this part of the world, in North Africa, particularly Egypt, it is not unusual to see a pot of lentils "seasoned" with a bit of chicken or even beef. There is not so much meat as to make it a stew. Much like with South East Asian cuisine, the meat in this instance is more of a condiment used to flavor the lentils while cooking and then doubling as a topping for service.

I have had some lovely, vibrant red lentils kicking around my cupboard for a couple months that I was contemplating cooking up. The last time I used them was part of a multi-course Indian meal, recipes courtesy of my go-to Madhur Jaffrey cookbook. Jaffrey, like many of her countrymen and women, uses copious amounts of ghee, or clarified butter, along with ample spices to give her lentils depth. I like the ghee, but was thinking this time around to make my lentils lighter, but still full of flavorful layers.

A little research on lentils, red and yellow, led me to some interesting sounding recipes from North Africa. The spices are often similar to what you might find in Indian cooking--cumin, coriander, ginger, cayenne--but the seasoning can be punched up in a couple of non-Indian ways. The first is a requisite squeeze of lemon at the end. The second is an optional addition of some non-pork meat like chicken or beef.

For my pot of red lentils, enough to serve four people, one whole chicken leg (thigh and drumstick) was enough to season the entire dish. Added to the pot bone-on but skin off, it deepened the flavor during simmering. Once cooked, removed from the bone and shredded, the chicken became a light topping.

Even with the heavy spices and subtle chicken flavor I still thought these legumes could use a little indulgence, even if it didn’t involve lard. A few tablespoons of clarified butter as a drizzle topping did the trick. When it all came together the lentils had turned from vibrant red to a rusty orange. Pureed till smooth and topped with the butter, a small mound of shredded chicken, and some sprigs of cilantro, it was a dish to please all manner of legume lovers.

Serves/Makes: 4

• 1 cup red lentils
• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 1 large onion
• 1 medium carrot
• 1 rib celery
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 1/4 teaspoon smoked paprika
• 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1 teaspoon whole fennel seed
• 1 teaspoon whole cumin seed
• 1 dash cinnamon
• 1/2 tablespoon turmeric
• 2 tablespoons tomato paste
• 5 cups chicken broth
• 1 full chicken leg, bone-in, skin off
• salt and black pepper
• 1 lemon
• 4 tablespoons butter
• cilantro sprigs
• pita bread