Montana · Salad
Montana Lentil and Wheat Berry Salad
- Easy
- 60 min
- roughly 2 of 4 for cost
- Vegetarian
Leads with an earthy, grounding base, fresh herbs arguing happily on top, with a clean, bright snap.
Ingredients
- 200g green lentils
- 150g wheat berries
- 1 red onion, diced fine
- 2 carrots, diced
- 100g feta, crumbled
- For the dressing: 4 tbsp olive oil, 2 tbsp red wine vinegar, 1 tsp Dijon, 1 garlic clove, salt and pepper
- Parsley and mint, chopped
The skills inside
Salted water & the float testKnife cuts: dice, julienne, bias
The words inside
Green LentilPuy LentilRed Lentil
Allergen screen
Found: gluten · dairy · mustard
Screened for: gluten, dairy, egg, nuts, peanuts, fish, shellfish, molluscs, soy, sesame, celery, mustard, lupin, alcohol. Not screened: sulphites.
Screened by keyword from the ingredient list, not reviewed by a person; check every label for what the list cannot show.
Method
- Simmer the wheat berries in salted water 45 min until tender but chewy; drain. 45 min
- Simmer the lentils separately 20 min until tender but holding shape; drain. 20 min
- Whisk the dressing and toss it through the warm grains and lentils: warm absorbs better than cold.
- Fold in the onion, carrot, and herbs.
- Top with feta and serve at room temperature.
How to tell it is going right
This dish has no standard of its own yet. It is judged on the techniques it exercises: checked at the pan, while there is still something to be done about it.
Knife cuts: dice, julienne, bias 150 recipes
- Take any three pieces from anywhere in the pile: they match closely enough in every dimension that you would have to measure them to argue otherwise.
- The cut faces are flat and clean rather than ragged or crushed; leaves and herbs are cut through, not bruised, and the board carries no dark smear where they were.
- The stated size is the actual size, held against a rule or a known reference rather than called about right.
- Everything in the pile is the shape that was asked for: no wedges, no half pieces, and no offcuts swept in to avoid waste.
- They cook evenly, which is the entire point: at the end of cooking nothing is still raw and nothing has collapsed.
Where it goes wrong The knife was dull, or the vegetable was never squared off first, so the pieces vary: the small ones are mush by the time the large ones are cooked, and the dish has two textures where it wanted one.
Salted water & the float test 188 recipes
- The water was salted before anything went in, and tasting it confirms it: seasoned on the tongue, with the salt dissolved rather than sitting on the pot floor.
- There is enough water, hot enough, that the pot returns to its boil quickly after the food goes in and never stops moving.
- Where the dish uses the float as its signal, the signal is obeyed: the pieces rise and they come out then, not several minutes later once something else was finished.
- Nothing is stuck to the bottom of the pot or welded to itself, and the water has not thickened into a cloudy sludge.
- Drained on a bite rather than on the clock: resistance at the centre, with no chalky raw core.
Where it goes wrong The pot was too small and the water unsalted, so it never recovered its boil: the food sat in slack water, went gummy at the surface, and comes out bland in a way that no sauce afterwards can fix.
At the Table
- The Pour
- Sauvignon Blanc (Sancerre)
- Also Right
- Grüner Veltliner
- From the Taps
- Berliner weisse
- Zero-Proof
- Cucumber-lime water
Green plates want green wines: vinaigrette’s acid meets its match, and the difficult vegetables surrender to Grüner.
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