Cava Lentils

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There is a persistent rule that you must not salt pulses until they are cooked, or they will stay hard. For lentils it is backwards.

Salted cooking water helps lentil skins soften, not harden. Testing on beans and lentils has consistently shown salted water producing more tender, more evenly cooked results — the sodium displaces some of the calcium and magnesium that hold the skin's pectin rigid.

Salt the water from the start. You also get lentils seasoned through rather than seasoned on the surface, which no amount of dressing afterwards replicates.

Use lentils that hold their shape

Puy, beluga or brown lentils. These have a firmer skin and stay whole.

Red and yellow lentils have no skin to speak of and collapse into purée within fifteen minutes. They are correct for dal and wrong for this.

Do not soak them. Lentils cook in half an hour and soaking pushes them straight past whole into disintegrating.

Do not let it boil

A rolling boil knocks lentils against each other and against the pan, and the skins split. Split lentils release starch, the water goes cloudy, and the batch turns from distinct lentils into a thick sludge.

A bare simmer, barely moving. It takes the same time and the results are completely different.

Dress them warm

This is the step that changes the flavour most.

Warm lentils absorb dressing. Cold ones have firmed up and the dressing sits on the outside, so they taste of lentil and then of vinaigrette, separately.

Drain and dress them while they are still hot enough to steam.

What you need

• 400 g puy or brown lentils, rinsed
• 1.2 litres water
• 1.5 tsp fine salt, in the cooking water
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 onion, halved
• 3 tbsp olive oil
• juice of 1 lemon
• 1 tbsp red wine vinegar
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 1/2 tsp smoked paprika
• 1/2 tsp black pepper
• 1 large bunch parsley, chopped
• 3 spring onions, sliced

Method

1. 1. Rinse the lentils. Do not soak.
2. 2. Into a pan with the water, salt, bay leaves and halved onion.
3. 3. Bring to a boil, then immediately reduce to the barest simmer.
4. 4. 20–25 minutes, until tender but still holding their shape. Start tasting at 18.
5. 5. Drain. Remove the bay and onion.
6. 6. While hot, toss with the olive oil, lemon, vinegar, garlic, cumin, paprika and pepper.
7. 7. Cool to warm, then stir the parsley and spring onions through.

The halved onion and bay

They go in whole so they can be removed. Their job is to season the cooking water, which then seasons the lentils from the inside.

It costs nothing and it is why restaurant lentils taste of more than lentils.

Herbs last, off the heat

Parsley added to hot lentils goes dark and loses its freshness within a couple of minutes. Wait until the lentils are merely warm.

Storing

Five days in the fridge, and they improve for the first two as the dressing works in.

Three months frozen, though the texture softens. Freeze them undressed if you can.

Take them out twenty minutes before serving — olive oil solidifies in the fridge and cold lentils taste flat.