PORK WITH THYME, MUSTARD & LENTILS

Tonight I wanted to cook something new, quick and easy, not too many calories and without having to buy lots of new ingredients….plus something that we would all really like….it wasn't easy to choose a recipe to be honest!!

I found this Waitrose recipe card that I had picked up at Christmas time and it seemed to fit the bill….I was pleased that it only took 40 minutes to make, was around 400 calories a portion and I could use up some of the red lentils which I bought when I cooked the vegetarian lasagne last month. A win win situation all round!

Ingredients for 4 people:

100g red split lentils
1-2 tbsp olive oil
6 sprigs of thyme
4 trimmed pork medallions or escalopes (I could only buy pork steaks)
2 echalion shallots, finely sliced
3 large tomatoes, diced (I used cherry tomatoes as I had them in the fridge)
2 tsp Dijon mustard
400ml of chicken or vegetable stock (I used beef as that is what I had in the cupboard)
2 x 230g tenderstem broccoli, ends trimmed

Rinse the lentils with cold water and set aside. At the same time slice the shallots, cut the tomatoes and pull the leaves from the thyme stalks.

Heat 1 tbsp of the oil in a large frying pan and cook the pork for 3-4 minutes each side or until golden brown. Pork steaks will take longer than pork medallions as they are thicker so you may need to adjust the timings. Once they are browned, set aside and cover to keep warm.

In the same pan, add another tablespoon of oil if necessary (I didn't) and then gently fry the shallots for a couple of minutes.

Add the tomatoes and fry for another 2 minutes.

Then add the thyme leaves, 2 teaspoons of Dijon mustard, the lentils and stock and simmer for 10 minutes.

I realised at this point my frying pan was too small so had to pour the mixture into a bigger one. Not very cool when I was doing the washing up!

Finally add the pork to the pan and simmer for a further 8-10 minutes until the pork is cooked though and there is no pink meat. 

While this was cooking I also boiled the broccoli which took 3-4 minutes.

Finally serve together and enjoy.

The picture certainly does not do the dish justice. It was surprisingly good - we all adored the lentil mixture….apparently red lentils are Arabella's new favourite things. Next time I would probably do it with fish such as a sea bass to make it even more healthy or you could use chicken or even tofu as my darling sister suggested!

I was proud of this dish - it ticked all the boxes of being low in calories, healthy, quick and easy, not too many ingredients and we all thought it was delicious too - I will definitely be doing it again!