LENTEJAS CON PIÑA, PLÁTANO MACHO Y TOCINO - LENTILS WITH PINEAPPLE, PLANTAIN, AND BACON

Trần Toàn

Lentejas con Piña, Plátano Macho y Tocino – Lentils with Pineapple, Plantain, and Bacon

By Toni Alvarez

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Cook Time: 40 minutes

Yield: 4 servings

Ingredients:

• 4 ounces bacon, chopped
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1/2 cup onion, chopped
• 1/4 cup carrot, chopped
• 1 garlic clove, roughly chopped
• 8 ounces tomato, roughly chopped
• 1 thick slice of pinapple, cored and cubed
• 1/2 cup cilanto, leaves and stems roughly chopped
• 1 1/2 cup brown lentils, rinsed and picked clean
• 8 cups of chicken broth
• Salt and pepper to taste
• 1 medium-sized plantain, peeled and sliced 1/4-inch thick on the diagonal
• Olive or vegetable oil, for shallow frying.

Instructions:

1. Heat the olive oil in a large pot on medium-high heat, sauté the bacon for 4 to 5 minutes until crisp.
2. Add the onions and carrots and sweat until soft, another 5 minutes or so.
3. Blend the tomato and garlic until smooth in a blender. Add to the pot and sauté the tomato puree for about five minutes. Stir constantly.
4. Lower the heat, add the pineapple, cilantro, lentils, chicken broth, and salt and pepper. Simmer for about 40 minutes.
5. Heat the oil for frying in a shallow pan over medium heat for about 2 minutes or so. Fry the plantains in batches until golden brown. Drain on paper towels. You can keep them warm in the oven.
6. Pass the fried plantains separately for people to top their soup as they please.

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The Story Behind the Dish

Mexican cuisines have inherited a tradition of preparing and eating Old World legumes for Lent from the Spanish, our colonizers and our ancestors. My mother, however, despises them all: chickpeas, fava beans and lentils. She never cooked any of them; she still makes a face when she tells of my grandmother cooking them for her and her nine siblings. I can’t imagine that they were terrible as my grandmother is a good cook to this day; I can, however, imagine my ten-year-old mother being sick of another bowl of lentils on a rainy February day. 

Out in the great wide world away from my mother’s kitchen, I have discovered that I love lentils. Many Mexicans love them too, especially when Lent--that turning of the seasons--comes around. Mexico is of course known for its New World bean recipes: refried beans in any number of styles, hearty bean soups, the Charro or Cowboy beans of Northern Mexico. But there are almost as many soups and stews and other dishes with chickpeas, fava beans and lentils and they all play a role in the cooking of many parts of Mexico, just not in my mother’s kitchen. 

This a fairly simple lentil soup, inspired by a soup by Dianna Kennedy who is the Julia Child of Mexican cooking, and a soup by Pati Jinich. It doesn’t contain any exotic spices unless you count cilantro as exotic. It is inspired by a soup from Central Mexico and it combines the earthy starchiness of brown or green lentils with fruit. The echoes of North African cuisine are unmistakable in its fascinating combination of sweet and savory; this is of course no accident of history, but the legacy of Spanish colonialism which has enriched Mexican cuisine. My mother who is from the Bajío (the west-central part of Mexico) would find this dish strange, but it is very Mexican. The dish is easily adapted to make it vegan, or more Lenten: just omit the bacon and use water or vegetable broth instead of chicken broth.