Nutty, garlicky, peppery lentil salad

The other day my friend Rachel over at THE CRISPY COOK provided a
spicy lentil chili recipe that sounded great. It got me thinking about a lentil salad I used to make using a recipe I found in a Sonia Uvezian cookbook. I just had to make a batch.

Here are the acknowledgements and the recipe:

Sonia Uvezian
The Book of Salads: An International Collection of Recipes
Drawings by Wendy Wheeler
101 Productions, San Francisco


Lentil salad

(Serves 4)

1 quart water
2 tsp salt
1 cup lentils
1/2 cup finely chopped onion
2 scallions, finely chopped, including 2 inches of green tops
1 medium clove garlic, finely chopped
2 Tbs finely chopped parsley
6 Tbs olive oil or vegetable oil
2 1/2 Tbs red wine vinegar
Salt, freshly ground black pepper, and cayenne pepper to taste
2 hard-cooked eggs, cut crosswise in thin slices (optional)
1 small sweet onion, cut crosswise in thin slices and separated into rings
Parsley sprigs

1) In a heavy saucepan, bring the water and 2 tsp salt to a boil over high heat.

2) Add the lentils, reduce the heat to low, partially cover, and simmer about 25 minutes or until the lentils are just tender, not mushy.

3) Drain thoroughly and place in a salad bowl.

4) Stir in the onion, scallions, garlic, and parsley.

5) Beat together the oil, vinegar, and salt, pepper, and cayenne with a fork or whisk until well blended.

6) Pour over the salad and toss lightly but thoroughly with a fork. Cover and chill.

7) Serve garnished with the egg slices, onion rings, and parsley springs.


Leo's notes:

One of the keys to this dish is to cook the lentils just so. I constantly taste the lentils while they're cooking to make sure they don't overcook. What you want is a chewy, nutty consistency. If you overcook them, they get mushy and the salad suffers greatly from it. Once I'm happy with their consistency, I quickly take them off the heat, drain them, and pour cold water over them to stop their cooking further.

I also up the garlic count in this recipe anywhere from 3-4 cloves to as many as 6 cloves. Nutty lentils with lots of garlic is an awesome combo for me. And, while I am careful with the cayenne pepper, this dish really benefits from using a free hand with the freshly ground black pepper. For the garnish, I use red onion for its mild taste and to add another color to the dish.

It's a great recipe and I get to use some of our home grown garlic and some parsley from the parsley plant I dug up in early November and transplanted into a clay pot that's now sunning itself in our dining room.

Hope you enjoy this one as much as I do.

Machaca chili with Guinness and chipotles Jan 2009 Foods and Flavors of San Antoniochili contest winner!

This chili is a synthesis of two distinct recipes: one for machaca, or shredded beef, and the other a fine chili recipe that I modify in several different versions depending on what I have on hand and what kind of mood I’m in.

I first heard of machaca beef in the mid-'70s from my friend Ken. He and his wife Sandy had moved from LA to NYC and I met them when they came up to their weekend home in our little town in the Catskills. Whenever Ken waxed poetic about the Mexican food he missed, particularly the legendary machaca burritos, it made my mouth water. Many, many years later I came across this recipe in one of Leo’s cookbooks, The Feast of Santa Fe by Hartley Dent (Simon and Schuster). Hartley remarks that Mexican cooks generally reserve the magic machaca term for sun-dried beef, but I believe this recipe is as close as I’m ever likely to get to the real deal in my home kitchen.

Machaca beef (hand-shredded beef)

2-3 pounds beef brisket (trimmed of all excess fat)
1 onion, coarsely chopped
1-2 garlic cloves, chopped (I invariably use more – at least 4 of our homegrown)
1 bay leaf
½ teaspoon oregano
1 teaspoon sea salt
½ teaspoon black pepper (fresh ground is best)
½ teaspoon cumin (ground or whole)
Vegetable oil

Preheat oven to 325. After trimming excess fat from the brisket, rub the beef with a little vegetable oil (I use olive oil). Then rub the beef thoroughly with the mixed spices and pat the garlic and the onion all over the beef to finish. Wrap the meat in heavy-duty foil, making sure that you have a tight seal all around. Place the package in a baking dish and bake for 2 ½ to 3 hours, until the beef is tender enough to fall apart. Low and slow is the way to go here.

When the beef is fork-tender, unwrap the top of the foil package, push aside the onions, and place the meat close to a broiler flame. Allow to broil only until the top surface begins to look dry and is starting to brown. Remove from the broiler and let the beef cool. Shred it into long shreds with your finger, then store them in the refrigerator (for up to a week), or freeze for later use. Note: shred the beef as fine or thick as you like; you can also cut the shreds to your preferred length. But DO use your hands for the authentic machaca effect.

Now that you have your wonderful hand-shredded beef, you’re ready to put it into service as the star of your. . .

Machaca chili with Guinness and chipotles

(this is our adaptation of Jane Butel's Esquire Fortnightly's Eastern Establishment Chili published in her book, Chili Madness, Workman Publishing, New York)

2 cups dried black beans (you can substitute canned black beans if you’re in a hurry, but the dried beans contribute a lot to the texture of the final product)
1/3 cup olive oil
2 large onions, coarsely chopped
6 large cloves garlic, finely chopped
2 green bell peppers, cored, seeded and coarsely chopped (if you like, you may roast these and peel them – this adds another layer of flavor, but is not necessary)
2 tablespoons dried basil
1 bay leaf
3 tablespoons “good” chili powder (good chili powder should contain only ground chilies, oregano, cumin, etc. It should not contain any additives, like garlic or onion powder)
1 tablespoon ground cumin
1 ½ chipotle chilies in adobo sauce
2 tablespoons masa harina (fine corn flour)
2 large cans tomatoes with their juice (crush by hand)
½ cup Guinness stout (or strong freshly brewed coffee, or other liquid of your choice)
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

1. If using dried beans, place them in a bowl, cover with water and soak overnight.

2. Pour the beans and their soaking water into a heavy saucepan. Bring to a boil over high heat, then lower the heat and simmer, covered, for 1 hour or until tender. Stir occasionally.

3. Heat the oil in a large heavy pot over medium heat. Add the onions and garlic and cook until the onions are translucent. Stir in the green peppers, basil, bay leaf, chili powder, cumin and chipotles. Cook for about 1 minute, then add the masa harina and cook for 2 minutes longer. Keep stirring – don’t burn the masa!

4. Add the reserved machaca beef to the pot with the tomatoes and their liquid. Bring to a boil, then lower the heat and simmer ,uncovered, for 1 hour or longer. Stir occasionally.

5. Stir in the salt and pepper. Taste and adjust seasonings. Add the Guinness or coffee and simmer, uncovered, for another hour.

6. Add the beans to the chili and simmer, uncovered, for another half hour.

If you like to experiment, you can try blending your own chili powder using dried chilies (I get mine at the health food store), oregano, and cumin, and other spices.

This chili recipe is our entry in January's Chili Cook-Off Challenge hosted on Gloria Chadwick's Foods and Flavors of San Antonio Web site.

Sleepy time time

Pictured to the right is the current desolate state of our garden. Only the fence, trellis poles, assorted pots and buckets, and remains of last year's crops (that I never got around to cleaning up) are visible now. But under that icy blanket of snow are nearly 200 cloves of garlic (16 different varieties) that I planted this past fall, beginning around Columbus Day and continuing until just before the ground froze solid in early November.

It doesn't take much to plant garlic, just some cloves of garlic and something to dig a 2-3 inch hole to plant them in (I use my thumb ;-) I prepared the soil first by spreading about an inch of compost over the beds. I have 3 foot wide raised beds so I planted 3 foot sections of 4 rows each with 3 cloves per row (1 section for each variety), spaced the rows and cloves 5-6 inches apart, marked each section with short sticks, and noted the placement of each variety in my garden journal so I know what comes up where next year.

Don't ask me to explain the differences of each variety since I can't say much more than that some are more spicier than others, that the very great majority of them are hardneck garlic, and that they all taste great and store well. Some day, I'll sit down with friends and we'll do a taste test of them all and see if we can categorize them but all that's fodder for a future post.

Once I planted all the garlic, I sprinkled some bone meal (garlic loves phosphorus for root growth) over the rows of planted garlic, covered the entire bed with straw to insulate it for the long cold winter, and then gave it a good watering. Don't worry if some of the garlic sprouts over the fall or winter (some of those that I planted earliest did sprout this year) because the garlic sure don't mind.

Last year, I planted 70 cloves of garlic (10 each of 7 different varieties) and 69 developed into beautiful garlic heads that I harvested by the 3rd week of July (see them drying on our porch in the photo). I planted them all within a week of Columbus Day. This year I got behind in my planting schedule and planted garlic all the way into November. I'm curious to see if that will cause any problems. Next year, I might try planting earlier (if I have the space). I read in Lee Reich's book, Weedless Gardening (Workman Press, New York), that he recommends planting garlic in late summer. He says and I quote: "It's commonly recommended to plant garlic in late fall, but when cloves are planted earlier, they establish more roots before growth is arrested by the cold. An abundance of roots keeps the plants well anchored into the soil through winter, and can fuel more growth next spring."

One of the other things I've heard about growing better garlic is that planting big cloves of garlic will yield big heads of garlic and I always try to follow that rule. However, I also overheard a garlic vendor at last year's Hudson Valley (Saugerties) Garlic Festival say that big garlic comes from planting garlic in 4 inches of compost and changing where you grow your garlic crop every year so I guess good soil and good gardening practices count, too ;-) But, in general, all interested in growing garlic should read and heed The Twelve Steps to Growing Great Garlic (which I originally found on the The Garlic Store Web site but doesn't seem to be there anymore):

Twelve Steps to Growing Great Garlic

12. Always start with quality planting stock. Plant the biggest cloves - they yield the biggest bulbs. Eat the smaller ones!

11. Planting in fall is best, though many have good luck with early spring planting. Full sun preferred.

10. Garlic likes friable soil, near neutral pH, with some composted manure. Incorporate a little bone meal at planting.

9. Plant cloves about 5-6 inches apart and 2-3 inches deep.

8. Mulch your garlic with straw, alfalfa, leaves, etc. Don't worry if shoots emerge during winter.

7. Keep the soil moist. Don't let it dry out, even during the winter.

6. Garlic hates weeds!

5. Garlic likes a few foliar feedings in spring, but do not fertilize after early June.

4. If growing hardnecks or elephants, cutting the scapes just as they start to curl will increase bulb size.

3. Harvest when the leaves on the lower third to half of the plant have largely turned brown.

2. Be sure to cure your garlic by hanging in shady, well ventilated place for 3-4 weeks.

1. Then, Enjoy Garlic and Enjoy Life!

Sounds good to me!

Pleased to meet you, hope you remember my name

Hi, my name is Leo and I farm a small 30' by 40' organic garden in the mid-Hudson Valley of New York State for fun and fresh vegetables. One of my great joys of the growing season is to walk around my garden before work, morning cup of coffee in hand, to see what came up out of the earth or blossomed overnight. The miracle of plants growing never ceases to amaze and gratify me. By the end of the summer, I've worn a path around the garden fence.

Keeping a garden is a family heirloom for me. Both sets of grandparents and my parents tended gardens before me and, though I showed little interest in doing so until recently, I adopted this family avocation after years of suffering the tasteless tomatoes and other sad products of industrial farming available at the market. Now, we grow and eat all kinds of vegetables fresh from the garden to our table. We couldn't be happier (or sadder when the harvest is done).

My girlfriend Linda is a great cook and she always finds ways to incorporate the harvest from our garden into the dishes she makes. I'm hoping she'll use this space to share her culinary successes with the rest of us!