lentils

Summer Salads Some Aren't- Grilled Radicchio Wedge Salad with Lentils, Honey & Spiced Walnuts

26 Aug 2011
grilled radicchio wedge salad

My week long series on Summer Salads marches on. Today I have a grilled salad. A grilled wedge salad. Afterall, it's summer.

Now I like a wedge salad. I even like a wedge salad with good old-fashioned iceberg lettuce. I really do. I don't understand why it gets such a bad rap.

But just because I like the classic wedge salad doesn't mean I can't play around with it some. Because I like fresh takes on the familiar. This Grilled Radicchio Wedge Salad with Lentils, Honey & Spiced Walnuts is just that. A fresh take on the familiar wedge salad. But it didn't start that way. I set out to make a lentil salad with chopped radicchio in it. But I made a wrong turn. That's what I like about wrong turns. They always lead somewhere unexpected.

But before I get too far along here I better bring up the obvious. Radicchio is a terrific vegetable. But many people don't really care for the particular brand of bitter that radicchio sports. So a lot of these folks end their relationship with it right there. But really, grilled radicchio is a whole other taste. Sure it's bitter. But it's a better bitter.

Now if my entire goal today was to introduce you to grilled radicchio then I would have simply advised that you grill it on each side, then sprinkle it with salt and fresh lemon. It would have made a fun, piping-hot alternative to a wedge salad.

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Grilled Radicchio Wedge Salad with Lentils, Honey & Spiced Walnuts

grilled radicchio wedge salad
By jgreghenry Published August 22, 2011
Prep time: 30
Yield:1 (Servings)

Ingredients:

  • 0.5 c honey
  • 0.25 t alpeppo pepper (or other type chili powder)
  • 0.5 t tummeric
  • 0 salt & pepper, as needed
  • 0.5 c walnuts, broken in large pieces
  • 1 c puy lentils
  • 0.25 t crushed red pepper flakes
  • 2 bay leaves
  • 2 T olive oil
  • 2 T red wine vinegar, plus more for drizzling
  • 1 head radicchio, left whole
  • 0 pecorino romano, shaved into thin shards, to taste

Directions

Prepare the walnuts: Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. In a bowl combine, honey, alpeppo pepper, tumeric and 1/4 teaspoon salt. Stir until well incorporated. Pour half the honey mixture into a new bowl and set aside for the lentils.

Add the walnuts to the remaining honey and mix to coat the nuts well. Spread the nuts onto a parchment lined baking sheet in as close to a single layer as possible. Bake the nuts 15-20 minutes, stirring once halfway through, until crunchy but still sticky. Set aside.

Prepare the lentils: Add the lentils to a medium saucepan, cover with about 2 inches of water, add the crushed red pepper flakes and bay leaves. Bring to a boil, then lower the heat and simmer uncovered 15-20 minutes, until tender but not yet mushy. Drain the lentils and return them to the pan. Discard bay leaves.

In a small bowl whisk together the reserved honey mixture, olive oil, vinegar, a pinch each of salt & pepper until the honey dissolves. Stir the mixture into the lentils while they are still hot, then set aside covered in a warm place.

Grill the radicchio: Heat the grill or grill pan to medium-high (indirect heat). Cut the whole radicchio head into 8 wedges. Brush the grates or the grill pan with a little olive oil. Grill, cut side down, about 3 minutes per side. Remove from heat and sprinkle with a little salt & pepper to taste.

Arrange 2 wedges per person on 4 plates. Set a large spoonful of lentils alongside the wedges. Garnish with reserved nuts, shaved pecorino romano and a drizzle of vinegar. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Source: The flavor combination was inspired by Yotam Ottolenghi

Sup's! Sources: Surfing Specialty Sustenance

21 Jan 2010
green lentils and other ingredients

Eating in truly exceptional restaurants is one of life's great joys in my opinion. Fortunately I live in Los Angeles where there is no shortage of such establishments. But for a variety of reasons (such as the state of my wallet) you can't always indulge yourself in this manner.

Still, sometimes you want to eat something special. Something particular. Maybe it's a regional specialty that you are craving. Perhaps it contains some unusual or hard to find ingredients. These are the times it pays to be a decent cook. But even decent cooks can get slammed up against the wall because when you crave something particular, something unusual there is the likely possibility that the corner market is not gonna carry all the items you need. How are you gonna make your particular culinary dream come true?

You could always improvise. There is a certain joy in creating something out of nothing. You could substitute a few anchovys for the Colatura di Alici in that special pasta you flipped over in that little seaside village south of Rome. You'd feel great, the pasta would be delicious, but deep inside you'd know it wasn't REALLY what you were craving.

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Nature's Pride Savory French Toast, It's No Wonder!

09 Oct 2009
savory french toast and lentils

Nature’s Pride sent me a couple of loaves of bread recently asking me to try their new product. Free bread – what’s not to like!

But seriously, I thought I’d put this bread through the paces. So I made sandwiches. Good sliced bread absolutely must do well with sandwiches. It’s 90% of its duty at my house.

I am pleased to report that it indeed made excellent sandwiches. The main reason for this fact was because it's not too sweet. Have you noticed that many of the grocery store brands of bread have gotten strangely sweet? It seems modern companies have crept up the processed sugar content in these breads slowly over time. As Americans began to turn to “healthier” whole grain sliced bread I think these companies doubled down on their bets by increasing the sugar content.

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Savory French Toast with Lentils

savory french toast with lentils
By jgreghenry Published October 9, 2009
Prep time: 30
Yield:1 ()

Ingredients:

  • 3 T olive oil
  • 1 large onion, cut in 1/4" dice
  • 2 medium shallots, minced
  • 2 clv garlic cloves, peeled and minced
  • 1 carrot, cut in 1/4" dice
  • 1 c lentils, preferably black or dark green
  • 4 c beef broth
  • 1 sprig thyme
  • 0 salt and pepper
  • 1 bay leaf
  • 2 large eggs, lightly beaten
  • 1 T whole milk
  • 4 sli whole grain bread cut on the diagonal into a total of 16 triangles
  • 0 very good olive oil for drizzling
  • 2 t fresh thyme leaves

Directions

Heat the olive oil in a medium sized dutch oven or small soup pot over medium heat. Add the onion, shallots and garlic. Cook, stirring occasionally until fragrant and translucent. Add the carrots and cook a few moments longer. Add the lentils to the pan, stirring to get them well coated in oil. Then add 3 cups of the beef broth, the bay leaf and the thyme sprig. Bring to a simmer and season with salt and pepper. Cook about 5 minutes then taste the broth for salt. Adjust as needed. Continue to cook about 15 minutes more, uncovered, until the lentils are tender, and have absorbed most of the liquid. Remove them from the heat and cover them with a lid. Let rest at least 15 minutes. When ready to serve add more beef broth and some water if necessary to get this as brothy as you like. I like it somewhat brothy but not too soupy. Just enough to wet the toastts with out letting them get too soggy too fast. Heat a nonstick or well seasoned cast iron frying pan over medium heat. In a shallow soup bowl mix the eggs, with the milk, thyme leaves and a tiny bit of salt and a pinch of ground black pepper. Dip the bread triangles into the mixture until well coated. Using your fingers remove some of the egg from each piece and move them to the frying pan. Cook all the toasts until brown on each side. Working in batches as needed. Move the hot toasts to individual shallow soup bowls, and top them with a helping of lentils. Drizzle a good bit of very good olive oil over the top, and serve warm.

Notes:

serves 4