Made dinner tonight for sarahx and burge, and they seemed to enjoy it. The main course was chorizo with rioja lentils, and burge said I ought to post the recipe, since I made it up.

So here you go.

This serves three, which seems like a funny number, but you get six sausages in a pack and two each is about right.

So, first you take a wide frying pan, heat up a couple of tablespoons of olive oil, and brown the sausages on all sides. I use chorizo dulce, the uncooked sort; you can also get piccante, but that'll make a very hot dish.

Once the sausages are browned, take them out of the pan and put them to one side, but leave the oil in the pan. It will now be bright red from the paprika in the chorizo and will smell great.

Now dice three medium carrots - quarter them lengthwise and cut the quarters into pieces about 3mm across. Reheat the oil and toss the carrots in, coat them in the oil, turn the heat down and let the pieces colour, tossing them around occasionally.

Chop a medium-sized onion - not too fine, but not chunky - and add that to the pan. Mix it around, keep the heat low and don't touch it for ten minutes. After that, add three finely-sliced cloves of garlic, and when the aroma starts to rise, add a bay leaf, a couple of tablespoons of finely-chopped fresh oregano and about a tablespoon on finely-chopped fresh thyme. Stir everything around and leave it for a couple of minutes, then if you want, add a teaspoon of chilli flakes and two teaspoons of pimenton piccante (Spanish smoked paprika, the hot sort). Add salt (not too much) and a good six or seven grinds of black pepper. Again, stir everything and leave it for a couple of minutes. By now, the mixture will be very dark, but not burned.

Now add the lentils. You want the small green lentils that you don't need to presoak and stay intact while you're cooking. Puy lentils are the most famous type, but you can get Canadian green lentils which are actually the same variety but half the price. You need 180g of these. Drop them into the pan dry, add a teaspoon or so more oil, and give everything a stir so the lentils are coated with the vegetable mixture. Now add the liquid. You want about half a litre of beef stock, and a quarter of a litre or so of rioja. Put the sausages back in the pan, bring the liquid to a simmer, put the lid on and leave it for 20min. Then take the lid off and simmer for a further five minutes. It's best then to leave it to cool, with the lid back on.

Before you want to serve it, bring everything back to a simmer - there should be very little liquid, but still enough to bubble up a bit - and pile a pack of washed baby spinach leaves on top. Put the lid back, and leave for three minutes, which is just enough to wilt the leaves.

To serve, pile the spinach into some bowls. Take the sausages out and put them aside on a warm plate. Stir a good glug of extra-virgin olive oil and a further splash of red wine into the lentils, then spoon them on top of the spinach. Put the sausages on top, then serve. Drink the rest of the rioja.

You can also do this with other types of sausage - a Cumberland ring is particularly good. Stick a couple of skewers into the ring at right-angles to keep it together and brown it on both sides, and cook the lentils with a non-oaky red wine and without the oregano and spices.

It's really good.