Ensalada de Lentejas Chilanga

This is a chilanga salad. From the comida corrida kitchens of Ciudad de Mexico, where every fonda from Colonia Roma to Iztapalapa sets out a row of cold salads on the counter to start the four-course set menu. Lentils, nopales, ejotes, beets with orange. The lentil one is the workhorse. It feeds the family on Monday, fills the lonchera on Tuesday, sits on the table Wednesday next to whatever guisado came out of the cazuela.

The ingredients are humble and the technique is exact. Lentejas pardinas, the small brown lentils sold by the kilo in every mercado. White onion, never red. Jitomate guaje, seeded so the salad does not water out. Chile serrano with the seeds in. Cilantro, generous. The dressing is vinagre blanco and lime, not a vinaigrette in any European sense. The vinegar is sharp and bright and that is the point. Esto no es comida de un solo Mexico, but this one is chilanga to the bone.

My mother kept a Tupperware of this in the refrigerator most weeks of my childhood in Colonia Roma. She salted the lentils at the end, never at the beginning, and she always seeded the tomato. Two small disciplines that separate a lentil salad you want to eat from one that turns to mush by Wednesday. La cocina no es decoracion, es trabajo. Even a weekday salad has rules.