Can This Salad Save the Earth?
The food is difficult. Food is not only made up of complex chemical systems that affect our bodies in many different ways (good and bad), but once you start thinking about animal welfare, farming methods and water use, try to eat “Like a good person “. But this does not mean that our good friend Brian Kang (from Earther ) will not try to iso all the forces .
As you may have seen last week, Brian is heading out in search of food as recommended in a recent reportreleased by the EAT-Lancet Commission, which “outlines how we might have to change our diet to accommodate another 2.5 billion souls and people. hotter Earth. ” He asked me to help him with a few recipes, which I’m happy to do, mainly because Brian is a very cold dude, not prone to moralizing, and he already admitted some of the disadvantages of the diet . (Also this challenge makes me feel like I’m on an episode of Chopped that was judged by Captain Planet, and I love it.)
It doesn’t shock anyone, but I’ve never been a diet fanatic. While I admit that eating within a certain set of restrictions does work for some people, it doesn’t work for me, and I think food culture is the idea that people (usually women) should eat to make parts of their bodies to disappear is bad, bad. But food for your health or food for the health of the planet we live on is something else entirely, and I was curious to see if I could develop recipes within the parameters of this plan that Brian might really like . For his first Skillet-approved meal, I made a lentil salad that he could prepare ahead of time and take with him to work, as eating at work can be a major problem with any meal plan.
Unsurprisingly, developing a recipe like this was a little more difficult than my usual fare. Not only was there a lot more math involved – the EAT-Lancet’s “diet” is in grams – but the sheer lack of fat, offending all my sensibilities. However, this is not impossible and I am very happy with the salad I came up with, with lentils, pickled cherry tomatoes, mushrooms and even a little pancetta and goat feta. To eat with Brian, you will need:
For the salad:
- 100 grams (about half a cup) of pre-cooked lentils are excellent at Trader Joe’s.
- 28 g diced pancetta
- 150 grams of chopped mushrooms – choose your favorite!
- 100 grams (about 13) cherry tomatoes
- 10 grams (about a quarter large) finely chopped shallots
- 30 grams of your favorite crumbly cheese (I used goat feta, but you can play here!)
For the bandage:
- 1/2 cup unsaturated oil (pistachio oil is fine, but olive oil will do)
- ¼ glass of Meyer lemon juice
- 4 cloves of garlic
- 2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
- 2 tablespoons nutritional yeast
- 1 tablespoon maple syrup
- 1 tablespoon of your favorite chopped herbs (I love thyme).
- ½ teaspoon kosher salt + more garlic
Refuel first. Peel the garlic by crushing the cloves, then chop and sprinkle each clove with kosher salt, continuing to chop and chop the garlic with a knife blade until you have a coarse paste. Transfer it to a stone jar (or other jar with a lid) and add the remaining ingredients. Shake to emulsify, then set the jar aside to mix the flavors while you cook the rest of the salad. (For those counting grams at home, each tablespoon of this dressing contains: 7.4 grams of butter, 3 grams of fruit, 1.6 grams of vegetables, 2.7 grams of mustard (which you count as sugar, I guess?) And 1. 3 grams of maple sugar.)
As for the tomatoes, you have two options: you can either cut them in half and toss at the end, or you can take a little more time and peel them , letting them marinate in the dressing for extra flavor. Peeling tomatoes is actually quite simple. At the end of each tomato (opposite the stem mark), make a tiny cross with a very sharp knife, being careful not to cut too deep into the fruit. Bring a saucepan of water to a boil and blanch the tomatoes in boiling water long enough for the skins to peel off – about five seconds – then submerge them in the ice bath to stop cooking. When they have cooled, gently peel off and place the peeled tomatoes in a bowl. Toss the tomatoes with a tablespoon of the dressing and season with a little salt and pepper. Cover and set aside.
Start with a cold non-stick skillet (non-stick is important so you don’t need to add more oil), cook the pancetta over medium heat until the fat is melted and the pancetta is crispy. Remove the pancetta with a slotted spoon, retaining the grease, then increase the heat to medium. Cook the mushrooms in pancetta oil until they have loosened most of the moisture and are crispy.
Combine lentils, pancetta, mushrooms, cheese and shallots with another tablespoon of dressing, then top with tomatoes. If you want to add more vegetables to it, serve it in your herb garden, depending on how much you have left in your vegetarian budget for the day. I also recommend at least one more tablespoon of dressing if you have room, but flaked salt dressing also goes a long way if you’ve used up your fat for your next meal. This salad can be prepared a night or two before you plan to eat it – in fact, it is one of those dishes that gets better when you mix it up a bit.