Lentils is a house favourite, finding a way to weave into countless recipes. Having three vegan members now means pulses is the main source of protein. This salad is my personal favourite, because it really is a big meal on its own, and is flexible in terms of ingredients and works with most of the things you have in your fridge. This dish falls into the salad category even when you have literally no greens to work with. Lettuce and its variety have been scarce recently. I like to mix fresh and roasted ingredient together to get a balance of flavours and filling.
I cooked the lentils in leftover vegetable stock, but you can go ahead in plain water, and maybe add in some fresh herbs or a garlic clove – and juwt plain water is fine too! This is not the season for eggplants and so the ones I had were pretty miser, so I grilled them up to add in – like I said, this is flexible – you can add cauliflower, carrots, baby corns, boiled corn, peas, green beans (fansi) etc…. if you have greens such as iceberg lettuce, rocket leaves, radicchio, fresh parsley, fresh dill and the sorts. I also added a slice of lemon to grill along with the spring onions bulbs – lending a nice char to it.
To make this wholesome, you can throw in some crumbled cheese, Grana Padano shavings, boiled eggs… but we had this as a side salad to pasta night, so this stayed cheese-free this time!
The dressing is a nice fresh zingy one with lemon and I also added some tangerine flavoured olive oil. You can totally replace the lemon juice with orange juice, some fresh basil… like I said, this is almost a leftover/pantry recipe – have fun with it!
