Name: Lentil Pottage
Cuisine: Italy
Ingredients: cornflour to thicken; 1 tbsp defrutum; 3 tbsp fish sauce; generous freshly ground pepper; large handful green coriander (½ bunch), chopped; 3 tsp chopped fresh mint or 2 tsp dried mint; 20 g coriander seed; 2 tbsp white wine vinegar; pinch of asafoetida resin or ¼ tsp asafoetida powder (optional); 250 g brown lentils; 1 heaped tbsp set honey; 1 tsp chopped fresh or dried rue; 2 tbsp olive oil; 3 medium-sized leeks

Preparation info

Difficulty
Easy

Appears in

Cooking Apicius

By Sally Grainger

Published 2006

About

This is another very popular dish at my demonstrations. The sweet and spicy blend of seasonings it a perfect complement to the lentils.

Lentils of different types were quite common in Roman Italy but we know of only one type in Britain from this period. An archaeological dig in London revealed the remains of burnt red lentil: in this case red lentils with their brown skins.