I’m so pleased with these lentil brie and bacon arancini.  As you will probably have gathered from other posts, we are a low carb household for health reasons.  I had been craving these delicacies though and was wondering, having tried using white lentils as a rice substitute recently, whether I could make this work.  The answer is a resounding yes and they were delicious.

As per usual, the filling was based on what I needed to use up from the fridge.  I’m sure a ragu style filling would work just as well.  I’m not though certain that lentils would work so well with a sweet filling but that’s a job for another day!

Apologies for the photos – I need to pretty them up a bit but don’t have time today!

I’m also not sure whether these would work as deep fried, which is the traditional way of making arancini – I didn’t want to have the faff of cleaning out my deep fat frier anyway or indeed the added calories.

I’m sure you could make these without an arancini mould too, however, I’ve just purchased one so wanted to play with my new toy!  By the way – avoid ordering these from Amazon right now – they all ship from China, even if they sound like a UK company in the first place and will take months to arrive.  Mine still haven’t arrived even though they were ordered two months ago and the delivery estimate is now the end of July.  I bought mine from a UK shop in the end.

Ingredients

1 cup white lentils

1 tablespoon garlic powder

2 tablespoons onion powder

3 tablespoons coconut flour

1 egg

4 spring onions, finely chopped

1 cup grated Parmesan 

1 cup coarse breadcrumbs (I used chickpea bread)

1 tablespoon blackened cajun seasoning

Spray oil

75g brie, chopped into small cubes (rind included)

150g unsmoked streaky bacon, chopped

1/2 red onion, finely chopped

75g Boursin

2 cloves garlic, finely chopped

1/2 teaspoon lazy chilli

Method

• Boil the lentils for 50 minutes in a covered pan of unsalted water and then leave to cool
• Fry the bacon in a little oil until quite crispy, then add the onion, garlic and chilli and continue to fry until the onion has softened (probably about 5 minutes).  
• Remove from the heat, spoon into a bowl trying to avoid transferring as much of the fat as possible and set aside to cool
• Drain the lentils, squeezing out as much excess water as possible
• Stir in the egg, spring onion, onion powder, garlic powder, Parmesan  and flour
• Pre-heat the oven to 180C fan and line a baking tray with parchment
• Mix the breadcrumbs and cajun seasoning in a shallow bowl
• Mix the Boursin and brie with the bacon and onion
• Using an oiled arancini mould (I used the round version) spoon in a heaped tablespoon of the lentil mixture,
• Push in the “dibber” to hollow the middle and spoon in a desert spoonful of the bacon and brie mix and press down
• Spoon a little more of the lentil mix on top and use the tamping end of the dibber to complete the round
• Tip out of the mould and gently roll in the palm of your hands to ensure you have a complete ball
• Spray with a little oil and roll in the seasoned breadcrumbs and place on the lined baking tray
• Repeat the process – this recipe makes six large arancini balls
• Bake in the oven for 20 minutes and serve hot