Salad of Lentils, Halloumi, Combusted Fennel and Orange

For those who thought this blog was defunct, or a passing whim: Yes.

But here's another recipe, because it's half term and I haven't got anything else to do apart from writing to the council with gripes about council tax. I made this a while ago, adding a load of things that seemed a good idea at the time (i.e. in cupboard), and setting fire to things to give myself that cheffy vibe.

Scale up appropriately to serve all the people all the time, and arrange as artistically as you can.

Ingredients:

Some lentils: half brown, half red.
Celery
Cucumber
Sprightly lettuce
Spring onion, or a couple of shallots, or something.
Fennel seeds
A whole fennel
An orange
Sherry in a culinary amount
Halloumi (sliced)
White wine for gratuitous usage/drinking whilst cooking
Splash of white wine vinegar
Butter
Salt, pepper


Method:

1) Bring a pan of salted water to the boil. Take the fennel, chop off the sprouty bits according to artistic temperament. Peel off the individual leaves (this may be made easier by chopping off the bottom too). Place the fennel leaves in the boiling water until they are softened but far from deceased.

2) In another pan, cook the lentils. Start the brown ones off first, as they'll take a bit longer. Give them about twelve minutes in total, so that they are soft, but nowhere near a dal (also spelled Dahl or Daal, or Dhal).

3) By the time the lentils are done, have a bowl ready with some white wine (or some water, depending on how extravagant you are feeling). When the lentils are done, drain them and place them in the bowl of wine to cool.

4) Make a salad. I like to start by cutting the lettuce into strips, then chop up the rest of the stuff quite small. Arrange this on the plates.

5) Hopefully you've spotted the lack of fennel reference by now, and have had the forethought to take it out the pan.

6) Dry off the fennel in a clean tea-towel. Now we're going to do three things at once.

7) Heat up the most solid frying pan you have, to blistering point. Add three or four fennel leaves at once, and let them singe a little at the edges. Stand well back, remove all pets from immediate vicinity, and glug some sherry into the pan. Allow the sherry to ignite (tilt the pan over the flame). To look dead cheffy, shake the pan a bit at this point. Repeat for the remaining fennel leaves.

8) Fry the halloumi in a different pan.

9) Construct a warm dressing: in a hot pan, fry the fennel seeds for thirty seconds. Add some of the wine from the lentils, a little white wine vinegar, the juice of half an orange, some salt and pepper. Reduce it rapidly. Stir in some cubes of (vegan) butter, letting it melt and thicken the sauce.

10) Drain the remaining wine from the lentils, and scatter atop salad. You can arrange the fennel (stalks pointing inwards like a teepee). Spoon the dressing over the salad.

11) Place some slices of halloumi strategically round the edge of each plate.

12) Eat with bread. Drink all wine that remains. If you like custard tarts, you could have one for pudding.


I encourage people to not follow this recipe exactly (or, indeed, to cook something else). Salad -- being cold -- gives you lots of time to arrange it artistically, so take that opportunity. Make the faces of the Shadow Cabinet with the lettuce, cucumber and an additional radish. My only practical point is that the sauce should be quite sharp: it might taste pretty gnarly when you sample it from the pan (as you should do), but this is necessary to stand up to the halloumi.