Swiss Chard, Beluga Lentils with Feta

Summer salad with homegrown Swiss chard. 

My 9 plants Swiss chard are thriving and that means eating them. Until today I only had them cooked in some way. But today the leaves went in raw and the colorful stems just had 3 min in the pan.

Beluga lentils are very small and nutty. They need 25 min to cook.  Lots of bits and pieces went in the salad.

Ingredients for 1:

60 g beluga lentils, 1 bay leaf

60 g swiss chard

100 g feta

4 cherry tomatoes, 1 green onion, 2 garlic cloves

3 stalks basil, 3 stalks parsley, 3 stalks coriander

1 tbsp capers

40 g almond slices, 50 ml olive oil

30 ml raspberry vinegar, 1/2 lemon zest + juice

1/4 tsp cumin, 1/4 tsp piment d'espelette, salt and pepper

Cook the lentils with the bay leaf until done, drain.

Cut the stems off the chard and in 1 cm pieces. Take the inner stem off the leaves and discard. Chop the leaves in 2 cm wide bands.

In a medium pan heat up the olive oil and toss in the almonds first. Give them 3 min, add chopped onion and garlic. Sautee 3 min and now in with cumin, piment d'espelette, salt and pepper.

The chard stems follow now. Zest the lemon, add capers and raspberry vinegar and finish cooking. Set aside to cool down a bit.

In a bowl add chard, lentils, chopped tomatoes and fresh herbs. Break the feta in small chunks and add to the bowl. Finish with the mix from the pan. Toss the salad and check the salt level.

If you use capers in salt, wash them. But they are still saltier than the capers in vinegar.

Let the salad sit for 20 min before serving.

Harvest season behind the house has started.