Introduction
Mujaddara is a dish of lentils and rice cooked together and crowned with a big pile of deeply browned onions. It is cheap, filling and surprisingly rich in taste for such simple ingredients. Eat it warm or at room temperature, with a salad and yogurt.
It is eaten all over the Levant (Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, Jordan) and beyond, often on days without meat. A dish of lentils and rice by this name already appears in a cookbook written in Baghdad in the 13th century. The onions are the heart of the dish, so be generous and patient with them.
Ingredients
- 200 g brown or green lentils
- 150 g long-grain rice, rinsed
- 4 large onions, thinly sliced
- 100 ml olive oil
- 1½ teaspoons ground cumin
- salt and black pepper
- to serve: plain yogurt (or a plant yogurt) and a salad
Tools
- A large pot with a lid
- A large frying pan
Preparation
- Put the lentils in the pot with 1 litre of water, bring to the boil and simmer for 15 minutes, until almost tender.
- Meanwhile, heat the oil in the frying pan over a medium heat. Add the onions and a pinch of salt and cook for 25 to 30 minutes, stirring often, until dark brown and crisp at the edges. Lift them out, keeping the oil.
- Add the rice to the lentils with the cumin, a teaspoon and a half of salt and 2 tablespoons of the onion oil. There should be about 1 cm of water above the rice and lentils; add some if needed.
- Bring back to the boil, cover tightly and cook on the lowest heat for 18 minutes, until the water is gone and the rice is tender.
- Rest it off the heat, covered, for 5 minutes. Fork it through, season with pepper, mix in half the onions and pile the rest on top.