Champagne and Caviar

2013’s New Year’s lentil recipe has the dual advantages of being vegan and also using up any leftover champagne you might have lying around after the New Year’s Eve festivities. It’s also a wee bit clever, given that they’re beluga lentils. (Incidentally, this is the only kind of caviar I could tolerate even before becoming vegetarian, since I was never able to share my mother’s wild passion for genuine beluga.)

This is a perfect mid-week pasta dish for the rest of the year, since it comes together in about half an hour if you time it right, and you can substitute any white wine or even a dry hard cider, French or even plain old brown lentils, and essentially any sort of green vegetable. I was originally going to add broccolini, but it was missing from the crisper when I went to cook, probably because I added it to soup mid-holiday week and forgot. No matter, since the leeks worked fine, as would any leafy green or brassica.

The only thing I’d recommend not messing with if at all possible is the fresh shiitakes, because they go so satisfyingly crackly at the edges when seared, and add so much meaty savoriness to the dish. Regular button mushrooms would not be quite the same.

Pappardelle with Beluga Lentils, Seared Shiitake Mushrooms and Leftover Champagne
Serves 4

½ cup black (beluga) lentils
5-6 tablespoons olive oil
8 ounces fresh shiitake mushrooms, stems removed, roughly sliced
2 medium leeks, white and pale green parts only, thoroughly cleaned and thinly sliced
1 cup leftover champagne or white wine
Salt and freshly cracked black pepper
8 ounces dried egg pappardelle

Cook the lentils in a small saucepan with sufficient water to generously cover until just tender, around 20 minutes.

While preparing the sauce, set a large pot of water to boil for the pasta, salting it well once it has reached the boil. Add the pasta and cook to al dente according to the package instructions.

In a large, non-nonstick sauté pan, heat 3 tablespoons of the olive oil over medium-high heat until shimmering, then add the shiitakes. Sear the mushrooms until deep golden and crisping around the thin edges, adding a bit more oil if the pan gets too dry. Remove the mushrooms but don’t worry about any brown bits that cling to the pan.

Add the remaining oil to the pan, lower the heat to medium, and add the leeks. Sautee until they begin to brown a bit, then deglaze the pan with the champagne, add a generous amount of salt and pepper, and simmer until the champagne has mostly reduced away. Add the lentils and taste, correcting seasonings as necessary.

Drain the pasta, reserving about a cup of the pasta water. Add the pappardelle to the pan and toss with the lentils, loosening it with the reserved pasta water as necessary. Serve in warmed bowls with a quarter of the seared mushrooms mounded on top.

Notes:

If using fresh pasta instead of dried, you’ll want to double the quantity by weight. Also, if you don’t use leeks, I’d throw in a couple of cloves of minced garlic along with your green vegetable of choice.

It’s important not to use a nonstick pan because you want to be able to use high enough heat to sear the mushrooms properly, and you also want to be able to scrape up all the yummy browned bits when you deglaze with the champagne.

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New Year, New Insanity

On the off chance that my prior Wednesday night baklava, candy making adventures, or Sunday layer cake baking haven’t convinced you that I’m a wee bit off my rocker, this really ought to do the trick. How many people go on impromptu solo tamales-making binges, I ask you? Tamales are the sort of thing that generally involve tons of planning and the rallying of an army of assistants, but I decided at lunchtime on New Year’s Eve eve not just to make tamales, but to start by making mole as the sauce first, which is normally considered a whole-day, once-a-year, multi-abuela job all on its own.

But the thing is, even rationally accepting how insane the idea was, I still had to do it, because while on a shopping excursion on Friday, I finally stumbled on a place in this generally foodie-positive but sadly Mexican-ingredient unfriendly city that sold fresh masa. I hadn’t had really good tamales since my last California trip, this time last year, so finally having the proper ingredients on hand, I was going to do it up right, damn it. Since it was also nearly New Year’s, I was also going to incorporate lentils somehow, as has been my habit for the past decade or so.

Tamales really are a ton of work and time, so I don’t expect anyone to try this particular recipe any time soon, but if you don’t have a ready source of really fantastic tamales, I seriously think these are worth the trouble once a year. They’re sweet and spicy and scrumptious, not to mention colorful, comforting, and festive, and unless you’re actually having them in the context of a tamales-making party, you should have at least a dozen tamales and at least a cup of mole to stash in your freezer for a few lovely effortless meals later on.

Roasted Sweet Potato, Beluga Lentil and Mole Tamales
(Adapted from Nancy Zaslavsky, Meatless Mexican Home Cooking, 1997)
Makes approximately two dozen tamales

For mole:
4 ancho chiles
4 guajillo chiles
1 chipotle chile
¼ cup golden raisins
4 garlic cloves, peeled
1 small yellow onion, peeled and quartered
¼ cup toasted sliced almonds
1 ½ cup vegetable stock
½ can fire-roasted diced tomatoes
½ teaspoon kosher salt
3-4 grinds black pepper
1 ½ tablespoons peanut or olive oil
1 ounce bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
¼ teaspoon ground allspice
1 2-ounce disk palm sugar, grated or shaved, or 2-3 tablespoons light brown sugar

For filling:
2 large orange-fleshed sweet potatoes
Peanut or olive oil for roasting
½ cup beluga, black, or French green lentils

For masa:
1 kilo (2.2 lbs) fresh masa
1 ½ cups softened unsalted butter, vegetarian non-hydrogenated shortening, or a mixture of the two
1 cup frozen corn
2-3 tablespoons cream or vegetable stock
1 tablespoon kosher salt
Freshly ground pepper

For assembly:
2 1-lb packages frozen banana leaves, defrosted

Stem and seed the chiles, then toast them in a dry pan over medium heat until pliable, flipping often to prevent any browning. Put the toasted chiles in a large bowl or measuring cup with the raisins, cover with boiling water, and soak for 20 minutes.

Toast the onion and garlic in the same dry pan until beginning to darken slightly on each side. Place the onion and garlic in the carafe of a blender with the drained chiles and raisins and a few tablespoons of the vegetable broth. Blend until smooth, adding more broth as needed to keep the blender running. Add the tomatoes, salt and pepper and blend again.

Heat the oil in a medium pot with a heavy bottom and high sides, and fry the sauce for five minutes, stirring regularly. Add the chocolate, spices, sugar, and remaining broth, lower the heat, and simmer uncovered for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally to avoid scorching along the bottom and sides. Set aside to cool while preparing the rest of the tamale components..

While the chiles for the mole are soaking, preheat the oven to 425 F and line a baking sheet with aluminum foil. Peel the sweet potatoes, then halve them and cut into 1-inch slices. Toss them on the baking sheet with just enough oil to lightly coat them, and bake until cooked through and starting to caramelize on the bottom, around 30-45 minutes. Let cool slightly, then cut into chunks of about half an inch. At the same time, boil the lentils with ample water to cover until they are tender but not falling apart. Drain the lentils and set aside while making the masa.

In the bowl of a standing mixer, cream the butter and/or shortening until light. Scrape down the sides and, with the mixer running, slowly add the masa by the spoonful and continue beating until fluffy, about another 10 minutes. With a food processor or immersion blender, puree the corn and cream or stock, then whip into the masa with the salt and pepper. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap to prevent the masa from drying out.

Unfold the banana leaves and rinse the powdery residue off. If they’re not already cut in half, remove the center vein from the leaves and cut into two long strips with a pair of kitchen shears, then cut each leaf strip into 10-inch rectangles. Steam the leaves in a large steamer until they’re pliable. Tear a few of the less nice leaves, or any that have torn while processing, into ribbons for tying up the tamales.

Lay down a steamed banana leaf square on a work surface. Using an ice cream scoop, portion out a ball-sized scoop of masa, and press it into a 6-inch circle in the middle of the leaf. Over the center of the masa, pile 2-3 pieces of roasted sweet potato, a small spoonful of lentils, and a spoonful of mole. Using the bottom edge of the leaf, flip over about a third of the masa over the filling, then lay the leaf flat again. Starting at the top edge, flip over the other edge of the masa to seal in the filling, then keep rolling to enclose the tamal completely. Fold under the two open sides until they meet underneath the tamal, and use a strip to tie it securely shut. Lay the finished tamal on a cookie sheet and continue forming tamales until the masa runs out.

Lay a few of the leftover banana leaves on the bottom of a large steamer over simmering water, and fill with the finished tamales. Cover with a few more leaves, and steam for about 1 hour, adding water to the bottom as necessary. Tamales are done when the leaf pulls cleanly away from the masa. Let rest for a few minutes before serving with the remaining mole on the side.

Leftover cooked tamales will keep in the fridge for a few days and reheat well in the microwave, or they can be frozen immediately after folding and steamed later.

Notes:

If you can’t find a source of fresh masa, you can substitute the equivalent amount of reconstituted masa harina, which should be available in most supermarkets. It won’t taste quite as sweet and lovely as fresh masa, but it should still be good, especially when livened up with the pureed sweet corn.

I used banana leaves rather than corn husks as the wrapper because I could easily get the leaves at the Asian market a block away from the tortilleria that sells the masa. Tamales are traditionally made with either of those wrappers in the various parts of Mexico and Central America, so use whichever you prefer. They will each impart a slightly different flavor to the tamales but will work equally well.

Palm sugar, like the banana leaves, is commonly found in Asian markets. It’s less sweet than cane or beet sugar and has a wonderful rich caramel flavor, similar to maple sugar, which you could also use. If you don’t have either one, light brown sugar is more than fine, but start with the smaller amount and taste before adding more, because it’s significantly sweeter.

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A Pampas-Worthy Vegetarian Empanada

Unlike flan, empanadas were most definitely a major part of my upbringing. Of course they were beef, and at least when my grandmother visited, they were sometimes fried instead of baked.

As is always the case with a food so elemental, empanadas were something of a flash point, because everyone had strong opinions about what should be in them. Grandma and Dad both liked a bit of sweetness in theirs, either in the form of raisins or, in Grandma’s case, a sprinkling of sugar over the filling as she took each bite. This was anathema to Mom, me, and my brother. The grown-ups all liked green olives, but my brother and I hated them, and although I liked hard-boiled eggs, baby brother has loathed them since he was pre-verbal and still does. To navigate this minefield of preferences, we ended up defaulting to the simplest possible filling of lightly seasoned ground beef with no additions whatsoever.

Later, of course, I completely voided this carefully-achieved detente by becoming a vegetarian.

While there are certainly vegetarian-friendly empanada varieties that boast their own long-established authenticity — my favorites being creamy corn or spinach and cheese — I still periodically have attacks of nostalgia serious enough to have conducted a couple of experiments with meat substitutes. The trouble is that soy- or wheat-based faux beefs never really do the job, and at this point I’m steering away from the super-processed stuff anyway.

Empanadas remained a head-scratcher until recently, while I was making my shepherd’s pie, when it occurred to me that I’d already cracked the ground-beef substitution problem. The pie’s lentil filling was pretty much everything I was looking for: substantial, protein-rich, just saucy enough to be moist but not so liquid that it would run right out of a pastry pocket. Encouraged, I made a smaller pie and reserved half the filling for use later in the week, when I had time to make pastry. I was quite happy with the little pockets, both freshly-baked and warm, and cold the next day for lunch.

While I’m sure several generations of my ancestors are still spinning in disapproval at my giving up the almighty cow, lentils would have been a familiar food, especially during the meatless days of the Catholic calendar. Unorthodox it may be, but I still think they would have understood and even liked this empanada as much as I do.

I will add that, as usual, I’m not unequivocally satisfied with the pastry recipe. While it does produce a moderately crispy-flaky, firm but not muscular crust that securely contains the filling and holds up well to refrigeration, it’s also rather bratty to work with, both as you’re mixing it and as you’re stretching and filling. It must be really cold in order to stick together and hold a nice edge, and requires a good long chilling or freezing step before going in the oven. That is more aggravation than I need for a simple snack.

Now that I have the filling down, I may go back to this dough from Saveur, which I make with butter instead of lard. It’s not as flaky and it does leave your fingers a bit greasier, but it’s also way less troublesome and much friendlier to shape. It also responds excellently to my flattening method of choice:

I like to use a tortilla press for filled pastry not just because I lazily avoid the rolling pin as much as the piping bag, but also because it completely eliminates the issue of scraps. Re-rolled dough made from scraps will never come out as tender as first-rolled, and I hate throwing the scraps out. With a press, you get perfect, uniform circles without bothering with cookie cutters and with absolutely no waste.

Since it’s difficult to adequately explain in writing how empanada dough is crimped to form the traditional rope-like edge, check out this video for an easy-to-understand how-to. If the technique still eludes you, just seal them well with the tines of a fork.

Empanadas de Lentejas (Lentil Empanadas)
(Pastry adapted from Cook’s Illustrated’s The Best International Recipe)
Makes 32 snack-sized empanadas

For the pastry:

3 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
12 tablespoons (1 1/2 sticks) very cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/2 inch cubes
10 tablespoons ice water

For the filling:

1/2 cup brown lentils
1 small bay leaf
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 small onion, finely diced
1/2 cup finely diced celery
1/2 cup finely diced carrot
1 cup diced cremini mushrooms
1/4 cup tomato sauce
1 large handful fresh parsley
Salt, pepper, and splashes of soy sauce to taste

For assembly:

2 hard-boiled eggs, chopped (optional)
1 large egg, beaten with a tablespoon of water

Combine the flour, sugar and salt in a food processor and pulse until well combined. Add the butter cubes and pulse again until the mixture resembles cornmeal. Dump out into a large bowl and add 1/4 cup of water at a time, working it into the flour mixture with a spatula just until no dry flour remains. Divide the dough into two equal pieces, flatten each into a disk, and wrap each tightly in plastic wrap. Refrigerate at least 2 hours to relax and hydrate the dough.

In a small pot, boil the lentils with the bay leaf in just enough liquid to keep them covered until just tender, adding more boiling water if necessary. Do not drain the lentils.

Saute the onion, celery, carrots and mushrooms in the olive oil in a skillet over medium heat until the vegetables just begin to brown . Add the tomato sauce, the lentils with their liquid, and the parsley, torn roughly by hand. Simmer until the liquid has mostly evaporated, then season with salt, pepper, and soy. Cover and refrigerate until cold.

When everything is well chilled, take one pastry disk out of the fridge and divide into 16 equal pieces. Shape each piece into a ball, then cover again. Line a tortilla press with a strip of parchment, folded in half, or a quart-sized zip-top bag slit open along both sides. Set a ball of dough between the halves of the parchment or plastic, and press gently to a thin, uniform circle.

Hold the circle of dough in your palm and fill with around two tablespoons of lentils, leaving an inch clear around the edge. If desired, top with a teaspoon of hard boiled egg. Fold the dough over the filling to form a half-moon, pinch the edges firmly together to completely seal in the filling, and crimp as indicated above. Repeat for remaining balls of dough.

Set the empanadas on a parchment-lined baking sheet and return to the refrigerator to firm up again, at least 15 minutes. Repeat the process with the second disk of pastry on a second baking sheet.

Preheat the oven to 425.

Brush the cold filled pockets with the egg wash and bake, one sheet at a time, until nicely browned, 20-22 minutes. Serve warm or at room temperature. Refrigerated leftovers will keep well for two or three days.

Notes:

If you prefer, the filled empanadas can also be frozen for baking later.

There are peas in the filling in the pictures above by virtue of it being half a batch I made for a shepherd’s pie, but as they’re not usually found in beef empanadas, I left them out of the recipe. If you like them, you can put them back in. If you’d like something green that actually is traditional in empanadas, try mixing some chopped green olives into the filling once it has cooled down.

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As Promised

Since I somehow seem to have stumbled into a tradition of posting a lentil recipe early in every new year, here is another of my favorites.

Although it’s called lentil hummus, all it really has in common with the chickpea-based original is that it’s a chunky puree of spiced and herbed legumes. Where conventional hummus can often be bland and pasty, this is deeply dark, meaty, and savory, more like a pate. While it’s perfectly good as a dip with pita wedges or chips, I like to use it as a spread on crackers and in sandwiches, and it also works very nicely as a filling for stuffed pastas like ravioli.

The recipe originally came from Todd English’s The Olives Table, but as this is one of the books I left in storage when we were on the other coast last year, I had to recreate it as best I could from memory. When I unpacked the book and looked at the original again, I noticed that I had changed the procedure quite a bit, although I had remembered most of the ingredients wth acceptable accuracy. On reflection, I think my procedure is a little bit more forgiving of wandering away from the stove, and the results are just as good.

The idea of seasoning lentils with this mixture of theoretically clashing spices and herbs may seem weird, but I assure you that they actually all play exceptionally well together. The cinnamon, rosemary, hot pepper and allspice all wrap around each other and lift up the low notes of the lentils, giving the whole the kind of intensity you’d never expect from such a humble base of plain brown legumes and vegetables.

The fact that lentils can metamorphose into something this scrumptiously good for you is one of the reasons I’m their biggest fan, and why, if I ever rebrand this blog, it would probably have to be called something like “Cookies and Lentils”. Incidentally, this is officially my hundredth post, so it’s a particularly auspicious lentil recipe!

Lentil Hummus
(Approximated from Lentil Hummus in Todd English’s The Olives Table)
Makes 2 cups

1 cup lentils, preferably brown
3 cups water
Half of a cinnamon stick
1 whole sprig fresh rosemary or 5-6 sprigs fresh thyme
1 bay leaf
3 cloves garlic, peeled
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 small onion, diced
1 cup minced carrots
1 teaspoon Aleppo pepper, or 1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
1/4 teaspoon allspice
1/2 cup white wine
1 tablespoon minced fresh rosemary or 4 tablespoons minced fresh parsley or cilantro
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, plus extra for garnishing
Salt and pepper

Combine lentils, cinnamon, rosemary or thyme, bay and garlic in a medium saucepan and cover with the water. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat and simmer the until water has nearly evaporated and lentils are very soft, approximately 30 minutes. Remove the cinnamon, rosemary sprig and bay leaf. (If you used thyme instead, it will have fallen apart and can stay with the lentils.)

Heat the olive oil in a large saute pan and add the onions and a generous pinch of salt. Cook until the onions have softened, then the add carrots, hot pepper and allspice and continue cooking until the vegetables have just begun to brown. Add the wine, cover the pan and lower the heat. When the vegetables are soft, remove the cover and cook until the remaining wine has evaporated.

In a food processor or in a bowl with an immersion blender, combine the lentils and the vegetables and process until mostly smooth. Add the fresh herbs, olive oil, and additional salt and pepper and pulse again to combine. Taste and add more salt and pepper if needed.

Serve warm or at room temperature, garnished with additional olive oil. Leftovers will keep for about a week in the refrigerator, or can be frozen for later use as a pasta filling.

Notes:

This is one of those times when brown lentils are preferable to my usual-favorite green or Puy, because you actually want them to break down. I haven’t tried it yet, but red lentils should also work beautifully in this for the same reason. In that case, I’d shift the spices in a more Indian or perhaps Ethiopian direction.

The herbs and spices can be swapped around fairly liberally. For example, if you don’t have fresh rosemary, you can substitute half a teaspoon of dried rosemary in the lentil-boiling step. Similarly, if you don’t have cinnamon sticks, you can use 4 or 5 whole allspice berries in the lentil-boiling step, and add 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon to the vegetables later in place of the ground allspice. I have also thrown in lemongrass stalks or strips of lemon peel for a citrusy note in past iterations. As long as you maintain the basic idea of contrasting a sweet spice against an assertive herb, you’ll be fine.

Half a batch of this hummus can be used to turn approximately half a package of wonton wrappers into four dozen ravioli. Of course, if you have access to or can make your own fresh pasta, so much the better.

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A Sheep-Friendly Shepherd’s Pie

Those of you in the southern latitudes might be sick of wintry food and have probably already moved on to mircrogreens and asparagus, but up here it’s still freezing and miserable and there’s still need for comfort. I can think of few dishes more comforting when the weather’s horrid than shepherd’s pie, and this one has the additional benefit of being kind to the sheep.

Yes, once again, it’s a recipe based on lentils. Don’t knock them. Lentils are cheap, delicious, nutritious, and cook quickly. Here they make a perfect stand-in for the usual beef or lamb, since they have a similar texture and a deep and substantial savoriness that’s perfect against the fluffy starchiness of the potatoes.

If it’s more than nominally spring where you are, you can tuck this away for six or seven months. Otherwise, please give this one a try now, especially if you’re having a bunch of guests over, since it can be assembled well ahead and baked when they arrive in need of warmth and welcome.

Vegetarian Shepherd’s Pie
Serves 6-8

1 cup lentils
1 large bay leaf
2-3 tablespoons olive oil
1 1/2 cups each finely diced onion, celery and carrots
2 cups diced cremini or white button mushrooms
1/4 cup tomato sauce
1 large sprig fresh sage
1 large handful fresh parsley
1/2 bag frozen peas
Salt, pepper, and splashes of soy sauce to taste
5-6 medium Russet or Yukon gold potatoes, peeled and diced
3 tablespoons butter, plus additional for dotting the top

In a medium pot, boil the lentils with the bay leaf in just enough liquid to keep them covered until just tender, adding more boiling water if necessary. Be sure not to drain the lentils once they’re cooked.

Saute the onion, celery, carrots and mushrooms in the olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat until the vegetables just begin to caramelize. Add the tomato sauce, the lentils with their liquid, and the fresh herbs, leaves torn roughly by hand. Simmer until the liquid has mostly evaporated, then season with salt, pepper, and soy. Stir in the frozen peas and turn off the heat.

Bring a large pot of water to the boil, and salt well. Boil the potatoes until tender, then drain and mash or put through a ricer. Stir in the butter.

Butter a 9 x 13 glass baking dish. Decant the lentil filling into the dish, then spread the mashed potatoes over the top evenly. Create ridges or swirls in the mashed potatoes and dot the top with tiny bits of butter to promote browning.

Place the pie on a baking sheet to catch any drips, and bake the pie at 375 F until the potatoes are browning nicely and the filling is just starting to bubble, 20-30 minutes.

Let sit for a couple of minutes, then serve.

Notes:

You can cut the recipe back at will, by half or even thirds. This just happens to be the amount that fits in my baking dish, and I like the leftovers so much that I don’t mind eating this for several days, which is contrary to my usual low tolerance.

The lentil variety doesn’t matter as much as in some other recipes. You can use whatever you have and prefer. In fact, I often mix brown lentils with French green or black beluga, since the brown ones will break down more and stick the filling together, while the firmer lentils will provide extra texture.

This recipe is easy to make vegan, since the only dairy is the butter in the mashed potato topping, which could be replaced with olive oil.

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New Year, New Lentil Recipe

I no more hold with New Year’s resolutions than I do with the stupid, pointless holiday itself, but I do find myself wanting to eat slightly healthier this time of year purely out of fat and sugar fatigue.  The impulse will wear off by the next major holiday (either my birthday or Chinese New Year, depending on the year), I assure you.

Until then, this is one of my favorite dinners, just right for these post-holiday, undo-the-damage, back-to-work busy days. Lentils are healthy and frugal, so if you are the sort who makes resolutions about either diet or finances, this fits both bills. If you’re also of a superstitious bent, Italians eat lentils in order to attract prosperity in the new year, and since all the economic signs point to a crappy 2009, it might not hurt to try observing the tradition.

This is a lazy modification of mujaddarah, a lentil, rice and caramelized onion dish found around the Levant. To save time, and also because I utterly adore and completely depend on it, I cook the rice separately in the rice cooker while I make the lentils and onions on the stove, then I mix the two together in roughly equal proportions.  Doing it this way also means that any extra rice is plain and therefore suitable for other uses — say, rice pudding, if your holiday crapulence recovery time is quicker than mine.

This is a wonderfully satisfying main course with or without the optional garnish of hard boiled eggs, and it also makes a great side dish for a simply roasted chicken, fish, or other protein if you’re not a vegetarian.

Cheater’s Mujaddarah
Serves 4 as a main dish, or 6 as a side dish

2 cups basmati rice
3 whole allspice berries
1 cup lentils, preferably green or black
2 garlic cloves, smashed and peeled
1 large bay leaf
3 tablespoons olive oil
2 large onions or 4-6 large shallots, sliced as thinly as possible
1 teaspoon ground allspice
1-2 teaspoons soy sauce
Salt and pepper to taste
Hard boiled eggs for garnish (optional)

Cook the rice with several pinches of salt and the allspice berries in a rice cooker or on the stove, as you prefer.

Combine the lentils with the garlic and bay leaf in a medium pot. Cover with water, bring to a boil.  Reduce heat to a vigorous simmer and cook until tender, 20-30 minutes.  Remove the garlic and bay leaf but do not drain, since the lentil liquid will be used for flavoring and moistening the rice later.

In a large skillet, cook the onions in the olive oil over medium-high heat until completely browned and beginning to crisp at the edges.  Set aside a few tablespoons of onions for garnishing the final dish, and add the ground allspice to the remainder.  Deglaze the pan with 1 to 1 1/2 cups of the lentil cooking liquid, then drain the lentils and add to the pan with 1 teaspoon of soy sauce and several grinds of pepper.

Turn off the heat and stir in half to all of the rice, depending on your prefered proportions.  Add additional soy and/or pepper to taste.

Serve topped with the reserved onions and quartered hard boiled eggs, if desired.

Notes:

Soy is not at all customary in this dish, but it adds depths of flavor salt alone does not, and compensates for the fact that the lentils and rice didn’t cook together.

No matter how many onions I caramelize for this dish, it never seems like too much, so if you’d like to up the quantity, you have my wholehearted blessing.  Red onions or shallots will produce an even sweeter, darker garnish, but plain old yellow onions work fine.

If you want to be exhaustively virtuous, you could use brown rice in place of the basmati.

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Bah. Humbug.

As anyone who has known me longer than one full year knows, I hate New Year’s Eve. No, I don’t merely hate it. I loathe it. I loathe the counting backwards to the inevitable anticlimax, I loathe the freight of expectations that can only end in rapid disillusionment, and I loathe the desperate pressure to find someone to partner with, no matter how momentarily, just to avoid being the only loser with no one to kiss at midnight.

New Year’s Eve is a stupid pointless holiday based around a completely arbitrary turning of the clock within an archaic and irrational calendar. (A sensible calendar would put the start of a new year either at the solstice OR some time in the spring, not two weeks after the solstice and before two to four more months of bleak nothingness). There’s nothing special about staying up past midnight or getting blitzed on champagne. As far as I can tell, the only purpose of this holiday is to get people to drink too much and reflect on their inadequacies so that they can start the next year hung over and loaded with guilt that the diet, exercise, self-improvement and finance industries can milk for the next month and a half.

Since I’m also usually in a post-Christmas, pre-return-to-work funk by this time, while everyone else is wearing silly glasses and hats and waiting for the big glass sphere to fall, I’m either stewing in my own bile and pontificating about the contrived inanity of it all, or defiantly asleep before midnight.

Mind you, I’ve never let my personal bitterness stand in the way of a good meal, so that doesn’t mean I don’t also mark the random turning with food. Indeed, a good murky black mood can be a piquant seasoning. This year it seasoned an easy and yummy dinner of lentils in red wine and aggressively garlicky mashed potatoes, with sausages for His carnivorous Lordship.

The lentils have become a New Year’s tradition by default chez Disdain. Although we never had them for the holiday while I was growing up, some years back I learned that it’s an Italian tradition to eat lentils on New Year’s, since their round shape evokes coins and therefore prosperity in the coming year. I don’t put much stock in sympathetic magic, but as I both love lentils and am mostly Italian, I seized the excuse to make one of my favorite winter dishes. I’ve been making the same recipe from Deborah Madison’s The Savory Way since college, and despite dabbling with other versions, this is still by far the best use of lentils and red wine that I’ve ever found. It’s unpretentiously sophisticated, basically effortless, and wonderful as a side dish or the center of a meal.

I can’t make you share my contempt for the stupid pointless holiday, but everyone I’ve shared this recipe with has loved it, and there are plenty of winter days left for you to make this warming dish.

Braised Lentils in Red Wine, for New Year’s or any other arbitrary winter’s day
(Adapted from Deborah Madison, The Savory Way)
Serves 4 as a main dish or 6 as a side dish

1 cup French green lentils
1 tablespoon each butter and olive oil
1 small onion, finely diced
2 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
2 bay leaves
1/4 teaspoon dried thyme
1/4 cup chopped parsley
1 teaspoon tomato paste
2 cups hearty red wine
1 1/2 cups water
Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
Wine, sherry or balsamic vinegar to taste

Heat the butter and olive oil in a wide skillet and add the onion, garlic, bay leaves, thyme, and half the parsley. Cook over medium heat, stirring, until the onions have begun to color. Stir in the tomato paste. Add the wine, bring to a boil and cook for 1 minute.

Add the lentils, water, and a sprinkle of salt. Return to a boil, then lower the heat, cover the pan, and simmer until the lentils are tender, approximately 40 minutes.

When the lentils are done, add salt, vinegar (to sharpen), pepper, and the remainder of the parsley.

Notes: I find I rarely need to add much more than a splash of vinegar at the end because the wine boils down and has enough acidity by itself, so you could probably omit it altogether. I prefer to use green French or black beluga lentils because they keep their shape better than ordinary brown lentils, but the latter will taste just as good if that’s all you have on hand.

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Another Legitimate Thirty Minute Meal: Southwestern Lentil Salad

Since I’m trying to get back into the swing of cooking, despite still not having as much time for it as I’d like, tonight’s experimental dinner was particularly gratifying. When I got home, all I had decided was that I wanted to do something with lentils, but by the time I was finished adding components, I had a dinner that was easy, quick, nutritious, and most importantly, really delicious. The richness of the lentils and the avocado, the crunch of the cucumber and green onion, the sweetness of the tomatoes, the tang of the lemon, and the sharpness of the spices and cilantro all combined beautifully into a simple but flavorful southwest-ish whole. In addition to making a very satisfactory dinner, I think this will be a great addition to the summer barbecue season.

Southwestern Lentil Salad
Serves 4 as a main dish, and at least six as a side dish

1 cup black lentils
2 garlic cloves
1/2 an English cucumber, diced
1 pint cherry tomatoes, quartered
3 scallions, sliced
1/4 cup olive oil
Juice of one large lemon
Salt and pepper
1/4 teaspoon paprika
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1/2 cup cilantro, chopped
1 avocado, diced

Place the lentils and garlic in a small saucepan, and cover generously with water. Bring to a boil, then lower the heat and simmer vigorously until the lentils are tender, but not mushy.

In the meantime, combine the cucumber, tomatoes, scallions, oil, lemon juice, paprika, cumin, and salt and pepper in a large bowl, and leave to marinate until the lentils are cooked. Once the lentils are ready, drain thoroughly and add to the bowl, tossing to combine. Taste and correct the seasonings as necessary, then add the diced avocado, stirring gently to avoid mashing it.

Notes: You could use any kind of lentil here, but I favor the black or green varieties over ordinary brown lentils when I’m making salads, because they keep their shape much better. If you would like to make it ahead, it should keep very well in the refrigerator for quite some time, but I would not add the avocado until the last minute, since it begins to brown very quickly after being cut open.

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