Recipe: My Favorite Lentil Salad 12 June 2007 10:49 pm
Posted by Tracy in : vegan, seasonality, salad, America's Test Kitchen, cheese, recipes, restaurants, eating, eugene, vegetarian, cooking , trackbackIt’s like lentil appreciation week here at TracyFood headquarters, I swear. Yesterday I made Madhur Jaffrey’s Green Lentils With Spinach for dinner, and today I made this salad: a fantastic summer-y meal that can be hearty without being heavy — but only if you have the self control not to eat a double portion, which is difficult because it’s so darn delicious.
The story behind my discovery/invention of this dish begins at the April 2006 family style dinner at Iraila Mediterranean Rustica here in Eugene. I’ve written about Iraila before, but just in case you missed my interview with their head chef, Mark Zolun, and because I love describing the Iraila “family night” phenomenon, these are special dinners that happen on a more or less monthly basis, usually the last Sunday of a given month, and when you make a reservation, you’re signing up to sit at a big table with a bunch of other people who have all agreed to share whatever special offerings Mark and Kenne have cooked up for you that fine evening. The dinner is a fixed price; drinks are extra. Anyway, that April dinner was a fantastic one for many reasons, including suppli al telefono (rice fritters stuffed with mozzarella) and Iraila’s eggplant parmigiana, from Mark’s mother’s own recipe. But it was one of the side dishes, lemony lentils with oranged garbanzos, that really captured my attention. I resolved to learn to make tasty lentil salad of my own.
My first attempt at lentil salad was based on a recipe in Moosewood Restaurant Cooks at Home, and it wasn’t half bad. The dressing used ground fennel to great effect; there were sundried tomatoes and other, crunchier vegetables, too. Like many prepared salads and salad dressings (like Shallot-Balsamic Vinaigrette, to use an example that surprised me just the other day), it was better after sitting in the fridge for a day or two so that all the flavors could merge. But I am not always a patient sort, and so I continued my search for a lentil salad that would be delicious as soon as it was put together, maybe even one that was good hot as well as cold and at room temperature, i.e. perfect warm-weather food. I found just such a dish in The New Best Recipe (a cookbook I might well have never bought except it was on super-special sale at Powells for just under $20, at which point I could not resist). As always, the crew at America’s Test Kitchen gave the project a lot of thought, and I’m happy to report they got great results. TNBR’s Lentil Salad With Walnuts and Scallions is fabulous, and I made just a very few changes to it out of thrift and laziness to come up with my version (equally delicious, in my opinion). But you can judge that for yourselves, lentil salad fans: make it both ways, and tell me which one you prefer!
Tracy’s Favorite Lentil Salad
What You Need
1 cup (a little more than 7 ounces or 200 grams) lentils du Puy, rinsed and sorted
1/2 medium onion, diced
2 bay leaves
1 large sprig fresh thyme
salt
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
freshly ground black pepper
6 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1/2 cup coarsely chopped walnuts, toasted and cooled (about 2 ounces, or 50 grams)
2 scallions, white and green parts, sliced thin
1/2 cup drained and rinsed jarred roasted red peppers, diced
Notes
De Puy lentils are also called (and sold as) green lentils or French lentils; they are mottled dark gray-green and smaller than regular brown lentils, which are confusingly enough also sometimes called green lentils, which is where the other description comes in handy. You can substitute regular green or brown lentils for French De Puy lentils in this recipe, but reduce the cooking time by 5 to 7 minutes and be extra gentle since the bigger lentils are a bit mushier.
Walnuts can be toasted in a dry skillet over medium heat for 2-3 minutes, or just put in the toaster oven until fragrant.
Roasted red peppers are delicious and I highly recommend always keeping a jar on hand for this and other recipes. Be sure to rinse them before use though; like anything canned, they can be a little slimy and benefit from a little fresh water.
The original recipe calls for the onion to be halved instead of diced, so it can be easily removed along with the bay leaves and thyme, but I’m lazy and like the extra onion. Also, ATK recommends cooling the lentils to room temperature before assembling the salad, but I think they absorb more dressing more deliciously if they’re still a little warm for this step; just be gentle so that they don’t get crushed. Finally, the original recipe uses sherry vinegar instead of red wine, and specifies 1/8 teaspoon black pepper, but I’m all for seasoning to taste and sherry vinegar is freaking expensive (Alton Brown says you can fake it with regular wine vinegar and a splash of balsamic, but in this recipe I’ve just made a straight substitution and it’s served me quite well so far).
What You Do
Bring the lentils, onion, bay leaves, thyme, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and 4 cups water (enough to cover by more than an inch) to a boil in a medium saucepan. Reduce the heat to a simmer and cook until the lentils are tender but still hold their shape, 20-25 minutes (I start to check around 15, but it could be as many as 30; taste them for tenderness, and if you’re in doubt, turn off the burner but let the lentils sit and keep cooking in the hot water — yay residual heat!)
Meanwhile, prepare the other ingredients: chop and toast the walnuts, slice the onions, drain, rinse, and dice the roasted red peppers, and prepare the vinaigrette. All of these are fun and easy tasks and can be easily interrupted whenever you need to drain the lentils.
For the vinaigrette: Whisk the vinegar, mustard, 1/4 teaspoon salt, pepper, and oil together in a bowl and set aside (if you make it big enough to mix and serve the salad in, that’s one less bowl to wash!)
Drain the lentils through a fine-mesh strainer and discard the bay leaves and thyme (and onion if you’re following the original recipe). Finish any remaining prep chores while the lentils drain and/or cool.
Transfer the lentils to a bowl and cool until safe to handle; toss with the dressing, walnuts, scallions, and roasted red peppers and serve immediately. Or chill until serving time, if you can stand to wait at all.
More Notes
Tracy’s Favorite Lentil Salad makes at least 4 meal-size servings in just under half an hour. It’s a good side dish with grilled sausages but I think it really shines as a light meal served on romaine or other salad greens and topped with crumbled feta cheese (unless you’re keeping it vegan, in which case it will still be awesome). It will keep well in the fridge for at least 3 days, but after that I don’t know, as it’s never lasted longer at our house. I have been known to make double batches of this recipe, and I think maybe that’s why I overdid the dressing something fierce tonight. It turned out very all right though: we ate the lentils on romaine, which didn’t mind the extra vinaigrette one bit.
Comments»
Tracy’s Favorite Lentil Salad has become a regular at our home ever since Tracy gave me the recipe last December. Sometimes we eat it with grilled sausages or over romaine or as a side dish for asparagus with poached egg on top . You cannot go wrong with this recipe, it is always great.
The two top reasons for making this dish often : you can fix it in less than 30 minutes and it can be eaten cold or warm.
Is this the recipe you sent to Thys & Beth before Thanksgiving? If so, I’m really excited to see it. It was fabulous then, and I look forward to trying it myself
This is exactly that recipe, Ellie, and I’m so glad to hear you like it! (In fact, a large chunk of this entry is based on the email I sent Thys about it.) Enjoy!
We had it in Ithaca also, and we liked it so much we are now going to try it for a book-group picnic at the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival.