Food with friends

Lentil Aubergine Salad

We had a busy day yesterday: we went out for lunch with a friend of mine and had incredibly delicious Dim Sum, and were invited to a friend’s place for dinner in the evening and continued feasting. We had a lentil-aubergine-salad as a starter, Pasta all’ Arrabiata as a main and ice cream with apple sauce for dessert, all of them very good.

Both the main course and the dessert were quite straightforward, so there’s little sense in describing those here, but I hadn’t had anything like the salad yet. Apparently, it comprised of onion chunks, cubes of aubergine, small strips of red bell pepper, puy lentils and chopped mint leaves which were all fried until done, then left to cool, and served on a bed of fresh mixed salad leaves with a simple salad dressing. Very delicious, and very creative!

Creamy Lemon Puy Lentils with Poached Eggs

2-4 spring onions
2 garlic cloves
1 can puy lentils
rind and juice of one lemon
4 tomatoes
1 teaspoon mustard (or more, if wished)
2 eggs
1 large blob crème fraîche

Ok, do your homework first. Chop (or slice) the spring onions, chop the garlic (or use a garlic press), open a can of puy lentils (or, *gasp*, cook them until tender, preferably including a bay leaf for extra taste), rind and juice the lemon and seed the tomatoes.

Then go on to fry the spring onion and the garlic until not-yet-burned. Add the mustard, the lemon rind and juice, and the tomatoes and cook for a few minutes.

In the meanwhile, prepare a saucepan with salted, slightly simmering water (you can also use vinegar instead of salt) and poach the eggs for 2-3 minutes.

Add the lentils to the spring onion mixture, add the crème fraîche, warm up a little, season, and serve together with the poached egg.

Serves 1 1/2; adapted from Nicola Graimes’ 330 Vegetarian Recipes for Health