A couple of weeks ago I was doing some research about the recipe that I will post next week. I was going through Ms. Rosa Montazami’s cookbook to see if she had a recipe for it. She didn’t, but in her salads section I came across this salad. I love lentil and I love beets, but what really had my attention was Golpar, known as Anagelica, on the ingredients lists. That’s when I started salivating!! I knew immediately that I had to give this Salad-eh Adas a try. This is the perfect time of the year to have a nice and hearty lentil salad.

Once I looked over the ingredients more carefully before I went grocery shopping I found myself totally puzzled by the ratio of ingredients. Specifically, I was totally baffled by the fact that she had listed 2-3 onions for this recipe. WHAT?!! Are we having an onion salad or a lentil salad??!!! The next ingredient to tackle was the 2 to 3 eggs. I was not particularly sure about adding eggs; so I took the question over to My Persian Kitchen’s Facebook Fan Page. The majority of the comments said yes to adding eggs. A major thanks goes to all of you who shared your opinion!!

I did some experimenting and tweaking until I was happy with the results. I hope you will enjoy this Lentil Salad as much as we have been!!

Ingredients (serves 6 to 8 )
(Adapted from Rosa Montazami)
1 1/2 cups lentils
1/2 pound beets
1/3 cup small diced red onion
2 eggs
1 head of lettuce
Dressing:
2 tbsp red wine vinegar
1/3 cup olive oil
1 tsp golpar (ground angelica)
1/2 tsp salt
1 pinch pepper
Cook lentils until tender.

Hard boil eggs, then allow to come to room temperature.

Drain lentils and allow to cool to room temperature.

Small dice onion enough for 1/3 of a cup.

Wash beets thoroughly and then peel them.

After peeling the beets, grate them in a bowl.

In a small mixing bowl add red wine vinegar, golpar, salt, and pepper. Mix well. Then slowly whisk in the olive oil.

Add cooled lentils and diced onion to the beets.

Add the dressing and mix well.

Grate cooled eggs on top of the tossed ingredients. Then gently mix again.

Serve the salad at room temperature or cold on top of your favorite lettuce leaves. In the original recipe the lettuce leaves were meant for decorative purposes, however, the combination of lettuce and this salad is so delicious. This salad can either be individually plated or placed in a large platter on top of lettuce leaves.