At the same time, I was testing something else. The fact that I have 175 fields to extract was causing this. So, when I subselected to get the primary key first and join that into the main table for the result, it was instant. Then, when I tried the original syntax with the RECOMPILE option, it was then also instant.
Now, which approach is better recommanded. Should I go with the subselect to get the primary key and then join that into the main table or to simply use the RECOMPILE? In the Web site applications, I have it off. But, in this particular script that is executed in SSMS, I could consider it if it would be judged as a better approach.