When Renart wanted to do Middle Eastern food for our recent Candlemas Feast, I found this dish to use as a salad.  One of the items I always look for when planning a feast are dishes that can be vegetarian options.  While this is indicated in the original was a medicinal recipe it worked fine as a salad.  Several variants are listed in the manuscript but the cucumber called to me and worked out quite nicely.  

I would speculate that the different ingredients were used each in their proper season;  cucumber or melon in summer, chard would be available in winter and lettuce in the spring. If you choose to use melon, simply substitute chopped melon for the cucumber. To use Chard or lettuce in the recipe I'd recommend added them to the lentils while they cook.  Note that the original gives some indication on how the dish should taste  "balanced between sweet and sour", so the different ingredients may require some adjustments to the proportion of vinegar and spices in the final product.

Lentil Cucumber Salad 

• 1/2 cup uncooked dried lentils

• 1 cucumber

• 2 tbsp red wine vinegar

• 2 tbsp olive oil

• 1/2 teaspoon whole cumin seed

• 1/2 teaspoon  whole coriander seed

• Pinch of saffron threads (opt)

• 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

• Salt to taste

 Cover lentils with water and cook over med heat until just soft but not mushy (or to your taste) drain if needed.

Peel (if waxed) cucumber quarter lengthwise and scoop out seeds (most is good enough) Chop into 1/2 inch slices (or what you will)

Toast cumin, coriander and saffron in small skillet till they start to be fragrant, cool slightly and grind in mortar

Combine oil, vinegar, spices except salt in a saucepan and bring to a bare simmer add in lentils and cucumber and heat through, salt to taste, cool to room temp or chill to serve.

 Makes about 2 cups of salad

 Note: If you do not serve this dish the day it is made the lentils can sprout, so be prepared. Sprouted lentils are totally edible and often considered more nutritious but can look strange to people who aren’t used to eating sprouted legumes

From An Anonymous Andulusian cookbook of the 13th Century, as Translated by Charles Perry

A Muzawwara (Vegetarian Dish) Beneficial for Tertian Fevers and Acute Fevers

Take boiled peeled lentils and wash in hot water several times; put in the pot and add water without covering them; cook and then throw in pieces of gourd, or the stems [ribs] of Swiss chard, or of lettuce and its tender sprigs, or the flesh of cucumber or melon, and vinegar, coriander seed, a little cumin, Chinese cinnamon, saffron and two ủqiyas of fresh oil; balance with a little salt and cook. Taste, and if its flavor is pleasingly balanced between sweet and sour, [good;] and if not, reinforce until it is equalized, according to taste, and leave it to lose its heat until it is cold and then serve.

Other recipes from this manuscript

Ahrash of Lamb

Other Salad style dishes to be served cold or at room temperature

• Marinated Mushrooms ala May

• Minted Cucumber Salad
• Onions in Sauce
• Pickled Root Vegetables

Other Vegetable Recipes

• Armored Turnips
• Carrots Apician
• Chard Pie
• Genovese Tart
• Mushroom Patina
• Parsnips Apician