Cotechino con Lenticchie

In our year in review for last year, I mentioned that we've done a lot of hoppin' John and collard greens for New Year's Day, but that this year we wanted to try something different. The plan was cotechino con lenticchie, the traditional Italian New Year's dish of pork sausage with lentils, maybe with some collard greens on the side for extra vegetables (although the side dish didn't end up happening). Pork and lentils are both supposed to be good luck ingredients, which is why they often feature in New Year's recipes.

I looked at two recipes when putting together our dinner plan: one from Spruce Eats and one from Not Quite Nigella, and combined them along with elements from the many YouTube recipes I watched. Cotechino is the star of the dish, a Northern Italian sausage, but I had no idea where to get it (and not much time to look), so I just went with sweet Italian pork sausage, a substitute I did see in some recipes. The sausage is simmered in broth until done (about 40-45 minutes) and then sliced up. I saw that some people gave it a quick saute in a pan afterwards, so I did that too. I also pulled off the casings post-boiling, which I think was a good move texturally. I saved the broth (straining out all the fat) to cook the lentils.

For the lentils, I soaked them while I was preparing everything else, so they cooked really fast since I am so slow at prep. Before the lentils themselves went into the pot, I added onions, celery, carrots, garlic, sage, and tomato paste (one at a time, in steps), and then once ready added the lentils with the broth, topped up with another cup or two of water to fully cook the lentils. Once they were done, the sausage was put on top, and some parsley sprinkled for garnish.

This was a tasty dish. The lentils didn't have any seasoning besides the broth (a little distracted that night), but still had a fair amount of flavor (would have been better with some salt, pepper, and other stuff added, but too late once realized). Combined with the sausage, it was pretty good together.

While the plan was to eat this for dinner on New Year's Day, it ended up being a rushed dinner on the 2nd of the year. Unfortunately, B was sick all through New Year's, and on the 1st of the year, we were monitoring the severity of his symptoms, and it just got too late in the night to make it. I started cooking earlier on the 2nd even though his symptoms were worse, and finished making dinner shortly before we made the call to go to the hospital. So, I did fully make the dish, we did try it, and it was tasty, but I will probably never schedule it for New Year's (or possibly ever) again given all the surrounding circumstances that I do not want to repeat.