Riverford introduces its own cotechino. Cotechino is a classic northern Italian cooking sausage - semi-dried to intensify the flavours it isn’t normally found in the UK outside Italian delis. Even then it is usually sold precooked in foil bags. Ours needs to be simmered (not boiled!) for about an hour. Have salsa verde available to serve with this dish.

Ingredients - serves 4

500g Riverford garlic cotechino
200g puy lentils
2 large shallots, peeled & finely chopped
1 clove garlic, peeled & finely chopped
1 carrot, peeled & finely diced
1 stick celery, finely diced
4 tomatoes, peeled & coarsely chopped
2tbsp olive oil
a bay leaf
salt, pepper
2 tbsp chopped celery leaves
2 tbsp chopped parsley

Method

1 Place the cotechino in a pan, cover with water and slowly bring to the boil. Reduce to a bare simmer and cook for an hour very gently.

2 After half an hour, heat olive oil in a saucepan and gently sweat the shallot, garlic, carrot, celery and tomatoes for 8 minutes then add rinsed lentils, bay leaf, plenty of freshly ground pepper and 400ml of water. Bring to the boil then reduce to simmering. Remove any scum coming to the surface and as the lentils cook and absorb the liquid you may have to top up a little - use some simmering liquid from the cotechino. Once tender (after about 20 minutes) add salt to taste, remove the bay leaf and fold in the chopped herbs.

3 Lift the cotechino onto a board and cut into 1cm slices. Spoon lentils onto warmed plates and sit slices of cotechino over - serve with salsa verde if you have some