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Lentils Creole
1 cupful (1/2 lb.) lentils 3 canned red peppers 1 pint (2 cups) tomatoes I onion 2 heaping tablespoonfuls (2 Salt and pepper ozs.) butter Wash the lentils, then cover with cold water and soak
The text as printed is an ingredient list with the method broken off mid-sentence, so a little reconstruction is needed. What survives tells you most of it: lentils, tomatoes, onion, canned red peppers and butter, stewed together in a covered dish.
- The measurementsOne cupful of lentils is given as 1/2 lb, which is right for whole brown or green lentils. A pint of tomatoes is 2 cups, near enough one 14-15 oz can with its juice. Two heaping tablespoonfuls of butter is stated as 2 oz, so 4 tablespoons in modern terms.
- Canned red peppersThese are pimientos, sold then in tins and now in jars. Three of them, drained and chopped, give the sweetness and colour the dish depends on. Roasted red peppers from a jar are the closest substitute; raw bell pepper is not the same thing.
- The soakingThe surviving text breaks off at 'soak' and gives no duration. Soaking at all reflects the older, drier, coarser lentils of the period; modern split or whole lentils need no soak, and soaked ones will collapse if given a long cooking time.
- Cooking time and heatNo cooking time, heat or method survives in the printed text. Simmered on the stovetop in a covered pot, unsoaked brown lentils with tomatoes take 40-50 minutes; a covered earthenware dish in the oven will take longer, with enough liquid to keep the lentils covered.
- Acid and tendernessTomatoes slow the softening of pulses considerably. If your lentils are old, cook them part-way in plain water before the tomatoes go in, or expect to add time rather than heat.
- SeasoningSalt and pepper are the only seasonings listed, which is austere. A bay leaf, a little thyme, or cayenne in place of black pepper all sit comfortably inside the Creole idea.
- YieldHalf a pound of dry lentils makes roughly four side-dish servings, or two as a main with bread.
This comes from a book written to sell and explain the earthenware casserole, a vessel that became fashionable in American and British kitchens in the early years of the twentieth century and let a cook take one lidded dish from stove or oven straight to the table. "Creole" in cookbooks of the period generally works as shorthand rather than a claim of Louisiana authorship: it tends to signal the tomato, onion and sweet pepper combination associated with New Orleans cooking, which recipe writers elsewhere borrowed freely for dishes from eggs to macaroni. Lentils were an inexpensive ingredient more often associated in the English-speaking kitchen with Continental and vegetarian cookery than with everyday family dinners, which may be part of why they appear here under a fashionable name.