| lentils | |||
| bacon | |||
| mustard | |||
| onion |
I’ve mentioned it twice this week, so I now have to tell you about it. A couple of weeks ago, a friend took me to L’Ambassade d’Auvergne, a Parisian restaurant where the most popular first course is lentil salad. They bring you a big bowl, like this. You eat as much as you can, then you eat some more, than you eat some other food, less enthusiastically, then you go home and want to make more lentil salad. So I had the requisite small piece of bacon, and the requisite dark green lentils (mine weren’t the coveted “lentilles de Puy,” but they were decent enough). And I had some other things they didn’t have at L’Ambassade and I lacked a couple of things they did have. But I think the three key ingredients are these: bacon, lentils, and mustard. I cut my little piece of bacon into the smallest pieces for which I had the patience, and browned them in a little olive oil. While they were cooking, I shaved some carrots in there too. I was out of garlic, but I did have a small bunch of spring onions and some tomatoes so I chopped both roughly and tossed them in there too, for good measure, along with enough water – water to cover, say. I then cooked the thing until the lentils were soft, not adding as much more water as I would have ordinarily, because both the tomatoes and the onions were water throwing off liquid. When the lentils were moist and soft – I don’t like al dente legumes, in general – I stirred in a very generous tablespoon of Dijon-style mustard, then tasted and wound up adding neither vinegar nor salt - both of which I had considered. When they cooled off a bit, I ate them. And enjoyed them about as much as those as L’Ambassade. |