fennelly lemony lentils with celery leaf rice
couldn't help myself
I was planning on sending you a sort of strange piece of writing on Friday, a bit of food-related book refuse, but copied it into the Substack CMS and had to immediately shut my computer—the sign of not-being-ready—so instead I come to you a little late, with a little lunch. We can call this the last dregs of use-it-up month, as I’ve halved my stock of pulses—last night I made a huuuuuge pot of dal—and dutifully eaten all my quinoa, though I still have a large bag of dried mushrooms staring out at me from the shelf. What have you used up this month? Maybe you want to tell me in the comments?
Has virgo season driven you to deep-clean your oven, something I have never done and maybe will never do? (Though I have been meaning to buy an oven thermometer!) Or are you doing the wise thing, and still spending all your free time at the beach? I’ve begun baking again, the true sign that seasonal change is afoot, since I almost never bake; but hopefully I’ll have a few things to share with you soon.
Last week I used up the last of my rice noodles in a slapdash version of the Night+Market pad thai, used up half a bag of pancake mix left over from a camping trip—luxe!—and boiled the last of my little black lentils. I love a lentil for lunch; their small size makes them easier to incorporate into any smattering of vegetables, I think, than a more burly bean. Toss them in a salad and they will cling faithfully to your dressing-slicked greens instead of pooling at the bottom of the bowl like so many misanthropic cucumber chunks. They are unobtrusive and earthy, virtuous but never punishing.
I recently found myself a little, well, let’s say it, hung over, after a luxe midweek dinner with an MFA friend (hi Kate!), and I needed to devise a lunch that would steady and fill me for the workday ahead. I needed to find something, anything!, that appealed to my confused appetite. I wasn’t so far gone that I wanted something fried and greasy and eggy; I just needed some wind in my sails. In the fridge was rice and lentils, and a head of fennel, and the fennel appealed first, because I already had the cast iron out, and one of my favorite vegetables in the whole world is fat slices of fennel whose edges have gone sweet and whose fibrous hearts have gone soft, falling over themselves with tenderness. I love, I love, I love fennel. Sometimes fennel is making me angry—one bulb doesn’t yield that much, and it’s certainly not the cheapest vegetable, you can’t buy fennel with the same abandon that you might buy an armload of carrots. So when I have one nice bulb—this one came from my CSA—I tend to save it for a single serving, hoarding it for myself. Fennel, then, could be the start of something, and what if that something was lentils and rice? And what if it included another favorite vegetal thing, a bunch of celery leaves so wide and ample they look like a high five? And so much lemon? (And have you read Jaya’s basically perfect piece on the genesis of beany leeky greens with greeky rampy beans? I had no idea that this all led back to Rachael Ray??)
This is, for me, a crucial category of comfort food. Lots of good guys, as my mother would say. (It’s randomly vegan!) Not heavy, but hearty. Not bland per se, but gentle. At the very least it got me through the day.
Herbed Lentils and Rice with Caramelized Leeks and Lemon
Serves 1 depleted person
1 tablespoon butter
1 large or 2 small heads of fennel, cut roughly into 1/2-inch slices
1 to 3 cloves garlic, sliced
Red pepper flakes like Aleppo or gochugaru
1 cup cooked lentils
1 cup cooked rice (I used sushi)
One big fat juicy lemon, or two regular lemons
Salt
Olive oil
1/2 cup rough-chopped celery leaves, or herbs like dill, mint, or parsley
Heat a wide pan — roughly 9” wide—over medium heat, then add your butter. Once it foams, add the fennel, and cook until the edges begin to caramelize and the slices slouch, about 5 minutes. Add a pinch of chili flakes and the garlic, and cook for another minute.
Add the lentils, give everything a stir, then let the mixture cook, undisturbed, for a few minutes; here we are trying to see if a few lentil-edges can crisp. Add the rice, and mix everything together, then give it a big pinch of salt, mix again, and taste. You don’t want this to be bland, so make sure to season it well. Let cook for a few minutes, until the rice is refreshed and plumped.
Turn off the heat and add your celery leaves or herbs. Add the zest of a lemon, plus the juice, and a big glug of olive oil. (Do not treat this like a diet food—it wants for salt and fat.) Taste and adjust to your liking with more lemon, oil, salt, or chili flakes. A soft cheese like feta would be amazing here, if you had it. Eat in a big bowl, with a tall glass of seltzer.