Won't yellow/orange lentils just dissolve if you cook them like that?
what's your point, ben? the soup will be somewhat homogenous, yes.
no point, I guess, but here are two other questions:
1. Isn't adding tomatoes to cast iron cookware generally not to be preferred, as their acidity can remove the seasoning and then you have to season it again plus your food will look all ironic?
2. Why fry the sausages separately, instead of frying them first, then using their fat to fry the onions and garlic?
(1) Simmering straight tomato sauce in cast iron is probably not a great idea, but the soup should be dilute enough that a well-seasoned pan can take it. And all that iron that dissolves into the soup? Nutritionally available. Cast-iron cookware is good for you.
(2) Don't you find that the fat that cooks off sausages burns easily, and not in a good way? You could do it your way (and it would be a little more efficient), but I think you'd end up with singed, crispyish sauteed vegetables, rather than soft transparent sauteed vegetables.
And this sounds like excellent soup, although I don't know much about okra. Does the okra make it thick and gumbo-ish, or is it just an additional vegetable?
Okra wants to be deep-fried. Respect its wishes.
Michael, while okra is biologically a fruit, it is kitchenally a vegetable (and since "vegetable" has no biological meaning—or so my erstwhile biology major girlfriend tells me—these aren't even mutually incompatible claims).
Sounds great. Maybe I'll try it with chorizo, per Ogged's suggestion.
I don't have any cast-iron cookware, but if I did, I'd use it to bake a pone of cornbread to have with the soup. Mmmmm. You can take the girl out of Alabama, etc.
(1) Simmering straight tomato sauce in cast iron is probably not a great idea, but the soup should be dilute enough that a well-seasoned pan can take it. And all that iron that dissolves into the soup? Nutritionally available. Cast-iron cookware is good for you.
Unless you leave a straight tomato sauce (or pure lemon juice or something) in an iron pan for days on end, you can't really give yourself iron poisoning, (I don't think you would manage it even then, unless you turbo-boosting iron supplements and eating the sauce) which is why they recommend women cook in cast iron for that extra (tiny) iron boost. The only exception would be small children who can be iron posioned much easier. But their portions are also smaller.
You do not want to get a tomato or any acidic sauce anywhere near a uncoated aluminum pan (including scratched teflon). Aluminum leaches very nicely, and small amounts will seriously fuck your brain.
(2) Don't you find that the fat that cooks off sausages burns easily, and not in a good way?
If you run it hot. You shouldn't be softening onions on high heat. Depends on the pan too.
You could do it your way (and it would be a little more efficient), but I think you'd end up with singed, crispyish sauteed vegetables, rather than soft transparent sauteed vegetables.
Sometimes. I generally do it that way with onion-softening steps because the flavor is better. Also, the dissolving (acidic!) onion juice picks up the the sausage frying-stuff off the bottom of the pan.
Won't yellow/orange lentils just dissolve if you cook them like that?
Depends on what you mean by 'lentil soup', don't it? Any lentil/split pea type of thing is essentially legimes with stuff in it. I puree it through the moulee/sieve, which results in a coarse thick soup and catches any stones I missed. If your mom made it some other way, or you're talking about lentils in not-soup, forget that.
Does the okra make it thick and gumbo-ish, or is it just an additional vegetable?
Depends on the state of the rest of the soup. Okra might thin it out some.
ash
['Angels wings are icing over, McDonald-Douglas olive drab...']
"Fruits and vegetables are both plant parts. A fruit is the ripened plant ovary, which contains seeds. Vegetables may be plants leaves...plant stems...plant roots...or rhizomes."
Michael, do you have a source for that? At last I will be the victor in this argument!
Cookwise by Shirleey O. Corriher, a professional food scientist.
as far as cooking onions in the sausage fat, I find that unless they are really really great sausages, the fat from them is sorta greasy. but it can be nice to get the little bits and flavors in. what I would do in that case is fry the sausages in the cast iron pan, remove them and pour out the grease, add the olive oil, and proceed with the rest of the recipe. it increases the time needed pretty dramatically, but it still probably wouldn't take more than 45 mins. I was trying to up the E-Z factor.
I find that unless they are really really great sausages, the fat from them is sorta greasy.
I love that sentence. :> Yeah, it'd might be lard (which is good! lard is good!), or it might be...something else.
I was trying to up the E-Z factor.
Da, thought so. I tend to make tubs of the stuff, so I'm used to it being slow. (Especially when you're talking like split pea and you're making ham stock.)
ash
['Wiiiiiiiiiiiilllllllllllllllbbbbbbbbbbbbbuuuuuuuuuurrrrrrr.']