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Lentil Salad
Soak the lentils over night; wash and rinse thoroughly, then cook until tender, adding hot water as needed. Drain, and when cold mix with each pint of lentils about five tablespoonfuls of oil, two tablespoonfuls of tarragon vinegar and one teaspoonful, each, of capers, parsley, chives and cucumber pickles, all, save the capers, chopped fine. Serve in a mound, on a bed of lettuce leaves.
Garnish with heart leaves of lettuce at the top and sections of tomato, or diamonds of tomato jelly, at the base.
A French-style lentil salad from a period when lentils were still an unusual pulse on American tables. The recipe assumes larger, older, drier legumes than anything sold now, and the proportions of the dressing are the part worth keeping.
- Dress them warmThe recipe says to mix when cold, but lentils absorb oil and vinegar far better while still warm from the pot. Drain, dress immediately, then cool to room temperature before assembling.
- Skip the overnight soakModern lentils are sold young enough that soaking is unnecessary and makes them collapse. Rinse, pick over for grit, and simmer 20 to 30 minutes depending on the variety.
- Which lentilUse a lentil that holds its shape: Puy, beluga, or brown lentils cooked carefully. Red and yellow split lentils dissolve into purée and will not work here.
- A pint of lentilsRead this as a pint of cooked, drained lentils, roughly two cups, which will come from somewhere near a cup of dry lentils. That much takes five tablespoons of oil, which is generous but correct for a salad meant to stand.
- SaltThe original never mentions it. Salt the lentils in the last few minutes of cooking, and taste again after dressing; oil mutes salt considerably.
- Tarragon vinegarStill sold, and easy to make by steeping a few sprigs in white wine vinegar for a week. Plain white wine vinegar plus a pinch of chopped fresh tarragon is a reasonable substitute.
- Cucumber picklesMost likely the sour or dill cucumber pickle of the period rather than sweet gherkins, given the vinegar-and-caper dressing. French cornichons are the closest thing on a modern shelf.
- Tomato jellyA savoury tomato aspic set with gelatine, cut into diamonds — a standard garnish of the era. Wedges of ripe tomato do the same job without the work.
- YieldServes four as a first course or side salad. It improves after an hour or two and keeps three days refrigerated, though the herbs should be added fresh.
Lentil salad dressed with oil, vinegar and chopped pickles is a French household dish — salade de lentilles — and its appearance in an American salad and chafing-dish cookery book reflects two things at once. Cookbooks of the period were steadily importing French service and French vocabulary, and lentils themselves were being promoted by the vegetarian and food-reform movements as a cheap source of what was then called "proteid." The garnish instructions are the giveaway as to the book's audience: a mound on lettuce, heart leaves at the crown, tomato diamonds at the base. Salads in this era were built and presented as much as they were mixed, and tomato jelly — a gelatine aspic cut into geometric shapes — was a standard bit of the salad-maker's repertoire.