Devil's Island Stew

My wife, Miz Fish, (Because she calls me "The Big Fish" sometimes!) finished a good read the other day: Papillion, the story of a French prisoner's escape from Devil's Island or somewhere  like that years ago.

One of the foods mentioned in the book as prison chow was "lentils" which we had never eaten but when we saw the dried little guys in our local market we bought a half pound to try as an experiment.

We cooked 'em up and the way we did it made a very tasty stew, so here is what we did in case you want to sample some French cuisine like they had on Devil's Island.

You take a cup or less of dried lentils and boil them about 15 minutes until they are soft enough to eat, drain and hold 'em warm until the fried ingredients are ready. 

Chop and saute a nice little brown onion (about the size of a hand-ball) in butter. I know--they didn't have butter on Devil's Island--but we do. 

You might as well chop in half a nice yellow bell-type pepper with the onion and don't forget to dice in two small tomatoes.

Then chop up some fresh spinach or such and maybe a couple of fresh young green onions too and toss them in with the round onion when that onion is fried to a golden brown.

Mix in the cooked lentils and, voila, you have some pretty good "prison" food. 

(Feeds two prisoners)

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