May 18, 2018
Auntie Helen had a way with lentils.
In addition to making lentil salad for summer cook-outs, she taught me that cooked lentils, topped with homemade tomato sauce, make a great main (or side) dish for a cold winter’s day.
Auntie Helen liked her scotch. On the rocks. And she was not shy about quantity.
Auntie Louise liked gin. Also on the rocks. Also not shy about quantity.
It was mostly under their tutelage that I went from drinking Bourbon Manhattans (Old Grand Dad at the time) to Bourbon, also on the rocks. This was somewhere around the age of 19.
I soon made the jump from Old Grand Dad to Jack Daniels, which remained my tipple of choice for decades. Now I’ve branched out to a wide array of bourbons but always on the rocks and in respectable quantities.
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Auntie Helen and Auntie Louise were born, shortly after the turn of the 20th century, in a palazzo in Rome, now part of the American Embassy. After their parents lost everything for the second time (there was talk that the first time it happened, they were bailed out by one of the Stroganoffs) the family emigrated from Italy to America. Their father, a Count in Italy, worked delivering bread in Trenton, NJ.
Auntie Helen and Auntie Louise both became schoolteachers. Neither married. They lived together their entire lives.
They had a sweet little house on Yardley Road, just steps from the Yardley town line, in Morrisville, New Jersey. I spent many weekends at their house, a little over an hour from where I lived in Philadelphia.
Auntie Helen did the cooking. Auntie Louise made drinks and helped to clean up.
Though they came from a background that was more privileged than most immigrants of the time, they had little by the time the family got to the United States. They did what many immigrants did, they assimilated and became almost “hyper” American. I never heard either of them speak a word of Italian. And, while Auntie Helen cooked an array of Roman specialties, she also cooked a lot of American food, including Impossible Pies, more the savory ones than the sweet ones; homemade Pumpkin Chiffon Pie (the only thing she cooked that I didn’t like); and cheese and egg strata for brunch (with lots of bacon on the side!).
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I recently found a series of Impossible Pie recipes that Auntie Helen wrote out for me. I can’t promise that I’ll make each of them, but I will post the recipes, in her own handwriting. If nothing else, they’ll be a bit of a time capsule.
Meanwhile, please enjoy my take on Auntie Helen’s lentil salad.
| Prep Time | 30 minutes |
| Cook Time | 30 minutes |
| Passive Time | 8 hours |
| Servings |
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- 1 pound green lentils
- 8 cups water
- 1/4 cup onion finely diced
- 1/2 cup olive oil approximately
- 1 1/2 teaspoons minced fresh rosemary or ½ teaspoon crushed dry rosemary (or more to taste)
- 1 clove garlic bruised
- 1 large home-roasted red pepper or a 7 ounce jar of roasted red peppers
- 1/4 cup white wine vinegar
- 1 tablespoon salt
- 1 teaspoon black pepper freshly ground
Ingredients
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- Wash and pick over the lentils but do not soak them.
- Drain the lentils.
- Combine the lentils and water.
- Bring the lentils to a boil and gently boil until just tender, 10-15 minutes, or maybe a little more based on your elevation.
- Drain the lentils.
- Mix the hot lentils with the diced onion, oil, and rosemary. Stir well.
- Bury the bruised garlic clove in lentils.
- Loosely cover the lentils and cool at room temperature.
- When the lentils are cool, they can be refrigerated for up to three days before proceeding.
- To finish the lentil salad, remove the garlic clove and discard.
- Dice the roasted red pepper.
- Add the diced roasted red pepper, vinegar, salt and pepper. Mix well and chill thoroughly.
- Remove the lentil salad from the refrigerator approximately one hour before serving.
- Adjust salt and pepper before serving. Add more olive oil if the lentils seem dry.
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