I first had this at Cafe Flora in Seattle and reversed engineered a recipe I was (and am) quite happy with. The recipe for their version eventually became available in their cookbook and mine is quite different. But since I'm happy with it, I'm sticking with it.
Ingredients:
1 cup of lentils
2 bay leaves
2 cups water
1 onion, halved and sliced
4 cloves garlic, sliced
olive oil
1 cup pecan pieces
1/4 cup tahini
water
2 T minced onion
Salt to taste, at least a teaspoon
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
ground pepper to taste
Cook the lentils in the water until quite soft, adding more water if necessary.
Saute the onions in oil until they start to brown. Add the garlic and continue to cook until the garlic is no longer raw.
Heat the oven to 350 and toast the pecans until they just start to brown, four to five minutes.
Put the tahini a food processor and blend, adding water until the mixture is the texture of thick cream. Add the onion garlic mix, raw onion, lentils and half the pecans and process until smooth.
Add the salt, pepper and spices and combine well. Correct seasoning as necessary. The mix should be slightly overseasoned at this point, as the remaining pecans are still to go in, and because the mix will mellow over time.
Chop the remaining pecans fairly fine and combine them with the puree in a mixing bowl. Correct seasoning if necessary. This can be served right away, but it improves by sitting for 24 hours to allow the flavors to mellow.
Serve with olives, cornichons, caper berries, onion confit, and baguette slices or crackers.
This recipe makes enough to serve 12 to 15 as part of an appetizer buffet. Leftovers make wonderful "meatloaf" sandwiches. In fact sometimes I mix up a batch of this specifically for sandwiches. It freezes well.
Blender note: It's possible to make this in a blender, but you will need to process the mix in batches and will need to add some additional water. But it will still turn out fine. If there are a few lentils that aren't fully pureed, that's fine too.
