Cajun Lentil Soup with Cal-Rhône

Epicurean Exploits - Food and Recipes
1

Since today was cool, cloudy, and rainy; we planned to have soup. Inside after light rains off on on all day; we had a Cajun Lentil Soup with pork & alligator sausage. The lentil soup was enhanced with garlic and Cajun Seasoning, The sausage was cooked in a a small amount of blood orange olive oil and added to the soup. The soup was lightly spicy and very nice with an enjoyable 1995 Terre Rouge Sierra Foothills ‘Noir’, 42% Grenache, 36% Mourvrdre, 22% Syrah - fill less than a half cm below the capsule; light garnet in color with a narrow orange edge, deepening to a uniform medium garnet in the glass; rich nose & flavors of spicy berries and currants; with good acidity to work with the spicy soup; and a long spicy fruit finish. It was a good meal for a cool, rainy evening.

Then for dessert, while watching the last two stages of the Tour of Ireland (via TiVo), we had a little Grappa, Sarpa di Poli and Banfi Grappa di Brunello, with a Champagne apple, given to us by the vendor that I got our chiles from. He gave us the apple since we were the first purchasers of his fresh-roasted chiles. The Poli was better with this apple than it was with the Pink Lady.

2

That sounds like an awesome soup, Dick. Did you make the sausage yourself, or were you able to source it somewhere?

3

I never see any alligators around here, so I don’t think there’s much chance I’d make the sausage. I got it at Kaune’s market here.

4

Hmmm … that’s odd. Santa Fe must have changed since last time I was there … used to be alligators all over the place … all over the parks, on the busses, even roaming the streets - like pigeons.

5

The only alligators I’ve seen here in nearly 25 years are the ones on IZOD logos.