# Meera Sodha’s vegan recipe for lentils with chestnuts, red wine and cavolo nero

If chestnuts could speak, they would ask for equal rights with other nuts, and not just to be eaten at Christmas. Once upon a time, eating chestnuts in season, from October to December, made sense, because, unlike other nuts, they have a short shelf life. But, thanks to fancy new packaging, we can now enjoy these crumbly, creamy nuts all year round. Being robust and buttery, rich and sweet, they’re an excellent addition to vegan dishes, such as in these lentils. Here, I’ve braised some chestnuts with lentils in wine until deeply delicious, then hard-fried some others until they’re like crumbly sweet breadcrumbs.

## Ingredients

- Chestnuts: 250g
- Extra-virgin olive oil: 7½ tbsp
- Large onion (peeled and finely diced): 1
- 2 leeks (greens and whites finely sliced and washed well): 2
- 2 celery stalks (100g), trimmed and finely diced: 2
- 2 garlic cloves (peeled and minced): 2
- Red wine: 300ml
- Fine sea salt and black pepper
- Cooked puy lentils (or 100g dried lentils): 250g
- Cavolo nero (leaves stripped and cut into 2cm strips): 200g

## Preparation
- Start by preparing the chestnuts. Cut half of them into small chunks and finely chop the other half into breadcrumb-sized pieces. Heat six tablespoons of the oil in a wide saute pan and add the onion, leeks, and celery, cooking, stirring regularly, for 10 minutes. Add the minced garlic, cook for two minutes until the raw smell disappears, then pour in the wine and a teaspoon and a half of salt, and leave to cook for five minutes, until the liquid evaporates.
- Stir in the cooked lentils, cavolo nero, and chunky-cut chestnuts, pop on the lid, and cook for 12 or so minutes, until the cabbage is tender.
- In a separate frying pan, heat the remaining tablespoon and a half of oil over the highest heat, then tip in the chestnut crumbs and fry hard, stirring regularly, for two to three minutes. Stir in a couple of big pinches each of salt and ground black pepper.

## Serving
Transfer the lentil mix to a platter, scatter the chestnut crumbs all over the top and serve.
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