Tag Archives: bean salad recipe

Mustard, Mustard — Everywhere: French Green Lentils with A Trio of Mustards

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Dig into this triple-mustard delight.
Dig into this triple-mustard delight.

If there is one thing that is always in my fridge, it is jars of mustard. That’s plural, because there is always more than one.

Dijon, stone-ground, brown, and yellow — it’s usually all there, to smear on sandwiches and sausages, to whisk into vinaigrettes, to flavor pork roasts, and to stir into velvety pan sauces for chicken.

As a bona fide mustard fiend, it’s no surprise that a recipe for “French Green Lentils with A Trio of Mustards” caught my eye — big-time. That’s because it incorporates not one, not two, but three types of mustard, as in Dijon, mustard seeds, and fresh mustard greens. How genius is that?

The recipe is from the wonderful new cookbook, “Cool Beans: The Ultimate Guide to Cooking with the World’s Most Versatile Plant-Based Protein, with 125 Recipes” (Ten Speed Press), of which I received a review copy.

This authoritative bean bible is by Joe Yonan, James Beard Award-winning the food and dining editor of the Washington Post.

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Rancho Gordo’s Alubia Bean Salad with Pineapple Vinaigrette

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Get to know how good beans can truly be.

Get to know how good beans can truly be.

 

I remember there was a time when I found beans utterly ho-hum.

I couldn’t imagine what could be that exciting about them. I was always more interested in what was with them or around them.

That was until I discovered Napa’s Rancho Gordo beans.

That’s when I realized beans could be comforting, surprising, satisfying and with far more flavor and character than I’d ever imagined.

Founder Steve Sando sources astounding heirloom beans with such evocative names as Christmas Lima Bean, Yellow Indian Woman Bean, and Good Mother Stallard Bean.

At least once a year, I make a purchase of an assortment of his beans, most of which carry me through the chilly winter in numerous dishes. But they’re equally delicious when the weather is still warm, such as in dishes like “Alubia Blanca Bean Salad with Pineapple Vinaigrette.”

RanchoGordoVegetarian

It’s a recipe from his cookbook, “The Rancho Gordo Vegetarian Kitchen,” which he wrote with Julia Newberry last year. As the name implies, it’s filled with meat-less recipes that star all manner of beans.

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