Lentil Salad
Simple Recipes French Vegetables Salads
A simple salad with a secret ingredient: walnut oil. This is how the French transformed this salad into a delicacy. The bacon (you can use any smoked meat, including pre-cooked smoked ham hock) should be of good quality, but fortunately, we don't lack that in Romania. Smoked meats are our specialty!
While I said you can use any type of lentil for the lentil stew, for this recipe I recommend only green lentils because they hold their shape when cooked, don't fall apart at all, and the salad will have a pleasant appearance.
There's also a vegetarian version of this salad where the bacon and sausage are replaced with lightly toasted walnuts, added at the end with the fresh herbs.
Ingredients
250g green lentils (Puy)
150g spicy smoked sausage
100g bacon
1 yellow onion
1 carrot
2 cloves garlic
1 bay leaf
1/2 bunch parsley
6 sprigs thyme
2 green onion stalks (optional)
salt, pepper
Vinaigrette (dressing)
6 tablespoons walnut oil
2 tablespoons lemon juice (or red wine vinegar)
1 teaspoon mustard
1 tablespoon very finely chopped red onion
Servings: 5-6
How to prepare lentil salad
- Cut the bacon and sausage into small cubes. Fry them without adding fat, first on low heat, then once they release their fat, on medium heat until crispy. Remove the cubes from the pan, leaving the fat behind.
- In the remaining fat, sauté the finely chopped onion and carrot. When the onion is soft, add the garlic and sauté for 1 more minute.
- Add the lentils and 6 cups of water. Add 3 sprigs of thyme (I used dried), half the parsley, and the bay leaf. You can wrap the herbs in cheesecloth for easy removal later. This combination (thyme, bay leaf, parsley) is called a bouquet garni.
- Cook everything for 30-40 minutes until the lentils are done.
- Prepare the vinaigrette: whisk the oil with the lemon juice until emulsified, add the mustard and mix well, then add the red onion. Taste and adjust with more of any ingredient as needed (perhaps more lemon juice for tartness, or mustard...).
- Remove the herbs from the pot. Drain the lentils in a sieve, then transfer to a large bowl. Add the fried bacon and sausage. Season with salt and pepper to taste and mix. Pour the vinaigrette over the lentils and mix again. Add the vinaigrette while the lentils are hot so it's better absorbed and the flavors blend.
- Let the salad cool. At the end, add the remaining parsley and thyme (I used fresh here) finely chopped, plus the green onion sliced into thin rounds. Serve at room temperature.
Frying bacon and sausage until crispy
Cooking lentils with vegetables and herbs
Mixing lentils with meat and vinaigrette
Lentil Salad
