Posted by kathryn in Legumes, Salads, Dinners, Dairy, Spring and Recipes

This was my dinner on Tuesday night. Richard was out and I wasn’t in a big cooking mood, but I still wanted something tasty, healthy and home-made. This salad fitted the bill.

The original recipe prescribed tinned lentils, but I already had some dried to use up. Rather than fuss around cooking them on the stovetop, I thought I’d try cooking them in my rice cooker. I used one part lentils to three parts water, added a pinch of salt about 20 minutes into the cooking, otherwise I left the rice cooker to its own devices. It took about 35 minutes and worked really well. The lentils were cooked perfectly for a salad – soft, but they still retained their shape and texture. The remainder are now in my freezer for future salad appearances.

This is a flexible salad – it started off as this recipe from taste.com.au (thanks to CK for sending me the original link), but then morphed and changed a bit, according to what I had in the house. You can change the vegetables, for example a handful of baby spinach would work really well, and also the dressing. I’d like to try this with a yoghurt, lemon juice and herb dressing, but also with a bit of chilli in there. I don’t like raw onion and usually soak it in boiling water to take some heat out, but you could also use red onion, or leave it out completely. Feel free to play around as much as you want.

Lentil & haloumi salad

Serves 1

• 1/4 onion, finely chopped
• 1/2 cup cooked or tinned lentils
• 1/2 small cucumber, chopped into small chunks
• 1 tomato, chopped into small chunks
• 1/2 cup of mint leaves
• 1/2 tablespoon lemon juice
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1/2 bunch asparagus
• 100g haloumi

Pour boiling water over the chopped onion and leave to soak for about 7 minutes.

Mix together the lentils, cucumber, tomato and mint leaves. Squeeze over the lemon juice and half the olive oil, then toss to combine and leave to marinate, while you cook the asparagus.

Heat a fry pan over a medium – high heat and add the rest of the olive oil. Put in the asparagus and toss in the oil for a few seconds, then immediately add the haloumi to the pan and cook for two minutes on each side. Continue to toss the asparagus, while the cheese is cooking.

Drain the onion, add to the lentil mix and stir to combine. Empty the lentils onto a plate and then arrange the cooked asparagus and haloumi on top. Serve immediately.

08 February, 2007