To paraphrase Billy Bragg, who himself was paraphrasing Paul Simon, I was 21 years when I started this food blog, I’m 40 now (as of last Friday, that is) and still writing it, obstinately unchanging as the internet around me evolves but also largely turns to sludge. I was student-broke back in 2007, and now everyone is sucked under by the economy; whether or not you have a solid salary and full-time job, you never quite feel like you can see further than the next week, jaw perpetually clenched. A year ago I canvassed people’s opinion via instagram story polls to find what they sought in recipes; “girl, the cost-of-living crisis” ranked highest. A year later, the vibe prevails, and I’m not sure how many more birthdays will tick over before it’s simply considered endemic. It certainly feels well on the way. Amid this context, I bring you a fairly modest recipe, which nonetheless enraptured me: Lentils, feta, dates, and mint.  

(Also, my birthday was terrific and I’m delighted, if mildly startled, to be 40—it really seemed like something that only happened to people much older than me—but let’s face it, the real landmark birthday on the horizon will be when hungryandfrozen.com turns 20 next year.)

To the recipe: This is another hailing from Claire Thomson’s wonderful One Pan Beans cookbook; I’ve barely changed it and didn’t need to. Now, lentils have long been among the last asked to dance as far as ingredients go, but you and I both know that they’re elegant and delicious and versatile, those dense little droplets with their earthy, dissolving creaminess and stone-like colour. Here, they’re enlivened by that perpetual culinary door-opener, feta cheese; along with sticky shredded dates and fresh, pungent mint leaves.

Exquisite though this combination is—and I’ll get into that shortly—I need to impress upon you that the unadorned lentils are also SO GOOD, by which I mean just with the fried onion and garlic, a splash of vinegar and plenty of salt and pepper. I can and have exultantly put away an entire can of lentils in this fashion and would make it again this way on purpose. That swirl of punchy flavour—softened, oily translucent onion, the garlic’s richness, and that sharp blast of vinegar—wraps around each lentil, intricate in its simplicity.

That being said, the flouncier ingredients turn this into something extraordinary, with that tussle between the vinegar and the sweet, toffeed dates clinging to and imbuing the lentils; with creamily collapsing crumbles of feta, itself sharp and also salty, and then the mint bringing in its high-frequency hum of cool, heady fragrance. I genuinely can’t get enough of this and happily it’s both easy and cheap to augment by simply throwing in another can of lentils. Try to source good Palestinian or Iranian dates—especially as the ingredients Claire has chosen evoke the flavours of the respective cuisines of these countries—but they also have a complex intensity of flavour and tender flesh that those usual lozenge-hard dates in the baking aisle can’t come close to. The feta, on the other hand, can get away with being the cheapest available.

You can also, of course, save a little extra by simmering your own dried lentils; this does cost in time and electricity (and patience) but gives you more options—for some reason, all we can get in New Zealand in a can is regular brown lentils, and I love them but wouldn’t mind a hint of variety. To that end, it’s worth noting that this is very easy to make; the hardest part is chopping the onion and patiently waiting for it to soften in the pan. But by then, you’re practically done (despite what the length of my written recipe would indicate.)

For more lentil-y recipes, I also suggest these Triple Tomato Beans (intense, fast, bright) this Sha’aktoura (soothing, gets better with age), or this Butternut, chickpea and peanut soup (cheap, filling, customisable).

Lentils, feta, dates and mint

This makes a lot and tastes glorious; with a small quantity of slighty more glitzy ingredients going further than usual. It’s simpler than I’ve made it sound—just gently fry the onion and stir everything together, that’s genuinely all there is to it. As always, before shopping for these or any ingredients, I recommend checking out the Boycott Aotearoa zines so you know which brands to avoid. Recipe lightly adapted from Claire Thomson’s excellent book, One Pan Beans.

• 2 medium-sized onions
• 60ml olive oil
• 3 garlic cloves
• 2 tablespoons red wine vinegar or white wine vinegar
• 8 medjool dates
• 2 x 400g cans lentils
• 120g feta
• A small bunch of mint—around 20g
• Plenty of salt and pepper

1: Peel and very finely dice the two onions. Warm the 60ml olive oil in a wide saucepan, and gently fry the onions until translucent and lightly golden—this will take at least 10 minutes, but it’s the only time-consuming step of the whole proceedings. Also, it does look like rather a lot of onion, but they shrink down a little and they’re an important component as opposed to a background-lurking seasoning. Sprinkle the onions with a little salt at this stage, both to build flavour and to stop them from browning too much.

2: While this is happening, very finely dice the garlic. Add it to the pan after the onion has thoroughly softened, and stir for another minute or two. Remove the pan from the heat.

3: Stir the two tablespoons of vinegar into the onions, followed by the eight dates, shredding them with your hands as you go, or give them a rough chop lengthwise (obviously, discard the seeds either way).

4: Rinse and drain the two tins of lentils and tip them into a mixing bowl. Spatula the vinegary onions and every last drop of pan juice over the lentils. Crumble in the 120g feta. Give it a gentle stir.

5: Finally, add a good amount of salt and freshly ground pepper to taste, and then tear in the handful of mint leaves, holding onto a few for garnish, and give it another stir. Serve immediately, sprinkled with the remaining mint leaves.

Serves 2 with leftovers, or 4, lightly.

Notes:

• Just the lentils, without the mint, dates and feta, are wonderfully delicious with plenty of salt and pepper.
• You can use as little as 60g feta and still have this feel rather luxurious.
• If you’re averse to fruit making its way into savoury dishes, you can simply leave them out and this will still be good, though I very much favour it with.
• For a vegan version, I’d replace the feta with toasted pecans or pine nuts for similar lushness; or with roughly chopped roasted red peppers from a jar for that slinky tanginess; or both.
• Sometimes I like to stir a handful of spinach leaves into this; the warmth of the onion softens them slightly.

what I’ve been listening to lately:

Your God & Mine by The Sour, you know when a song is so instantly arresting that you have to double-check that it’s not a cover? I don’t mean that it sounds derivative, although it does joyfully evoke that loose sardonicness of the Breeders; no, I mean that it just sounds so whole and complete and like it’s confidently already your favourite song.

Symphony No. 9 in D Minor by Anton Bruckner. The day before my birthday I was invited to speak on RNZ Concert, possibly my favourite radio station, where I was possibly the first person to mention Limp Bizkit on air; if you jump to around 29 minutes into the symphony you’ll understand why (and you can listen to my segment here, if you like.) My brother sent me a few different composers’ takes on the symphony, this is Eugen Jochum who he suggested echoed a Rites of Spring-esque apocalyptic eeriness, which I think bears out.

Until it Blazes, by Eve Beglarian, as performed by Matthew Marshall. I heard this on the aforementioned RNZ Concert the next day—it’s a tautly delicate and hypnotic, shapeshifting depending on which instrument it’s performed on; in this case the guitar brings a kind of introspective, prairie-ish warmth.
   
Hi-Speed Boats by Mercury Rev, which is so scuzzy and fuzzy that it feels like you’re trying to chase it through radio frequencies on a tape deck with a broken aerial.

PS: Feeling hopeless is a luxury that serves no one but those perpetrating the hopelessness, despite the hopelessness being accelerated beyond comprehension daily. The people of Palestine need us now more than ever; aside from directly sending money when you see personal videos pop up as you scroll, you can support:

• ReliefAid’s Gaza Appeal, who are connected with teams on the ground in Gaza.
• Convoys of Good, another registered NZ charity distributing aid.
• Please visit Chuffed—they’re one of the few spaces providing families in Palestine with official crowd-funding platforms, as well as for other urgent causes.
• As I’ve already mentioned, you can also demonstrate your control and power through the absence of your dollars. Boycott Zine Aotearoa has helpfully put together two comprehensive free zines so you can quickly see who to studiously avoid when buying food, drinks, household items and beauty products.
• You can also check out the Pro-Palestine Business Aotearoa account by the same people for a very solid list of places to actively focus your consumer attention on.