To me, the key to delicious Middle Eastern legume and grain dishes is the browned onions.I first became acquainted with the popular Middle Eastern dish of rice with lentils known as mejadra in the early 1970s when I bought Lilian Cornfeld’s cookbook Hamitbah Hameshubah (Fine Cooking, Hebrew).The book calls for making the dish by mixing the cooked rice and lentils with a small amount of fried onion. It was similar to a rice pilaf with lentils added. This was the way I prepared it for years.
Only when I ate mejadra at a Middle Eastern restaurant where it was served covered with golden brown onions did I realize why it became a classic. The generous amount of flavorful onion transformed the mejadra from a pleasing dish into a wonderful one.Anissa Helou, author of Levant – Recipes and Memories from the Middle East, who grew up in Beirut, counts mejadra as one of her favorite family lunch dishes. When Helou makes mejadra, which she describes as mushy lentils with rice, she fries a substantial amount of sliced onion – three onions for four servings – until they caramelize and turn a rich, dark brown. She uses half the fried onions, along with the olive oil used to brown them, to flavor the rice and lentils as they cook, and scatters the rest on top at serving time. Her recipe is wholesome, with four times as many lentils as rice (see recipe below).There’s a second kind of Middle Eastern rice and lentil dish, mudardarah, which Helou notes is different from mejadra, as it is more like a risotto than a puree. When her aunt in Syria made it, she often replaced the rice with coarse bulgur wheat and used twice as many lentils as bulgur. For this dish, too, Helou sautées a generous amount of onion in olive oil until it is deep brown. She removes three quarters of the onions, spreads them over paper towels so they become crispy and reserves them for garnish. The remaining fried onions go into the pan of simmering lentils and rice.Fried onions also add good flavor to soups, like Helou’s makhluta, a mixed pulses and grains soup that is made from white beans, chickpeas, lentils and a small proportion of bulgur wheat and rice. The golden fried onions and their oil simmer in the thick soup for the last 15 minutes of its cooking time. Depending on her mood, Helou alternates different traditional seasonings for the soup – cumin, cinnamon, allspice and seven spice blend, a mixture of black pepper and sweet spices similar to the baharat blend available at Israeli supermarkets.Dark brown fried onions play an important role in Egypt’s lentil and rice specialty known as kosheri. Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi, authors of Ottolenghi the Cookbook, make theirs by sautéing broken vermicelli noodles in butter until golden brown, adding basmati rice, stock, nutmeg and cinnamon and combining the cooked rice mixture with separately cooked green lentils. They mix a generous amount of onions fried in olive oil into the dish and garnish it with more browned onions. To serve kosheri the traditional way, they accompany it with a spicy tomato sauce flavored with sautéed garlic, hot red peppers, cumin and vinegar. An alternative accompaniment is a bowl of yogurt mixed with tomatoes and cucumbers.Ottolenghi and Tamimi include browned onions when creating new dishes from grains. For their red rice and quinoa with oranges and pistachios, for example, they combine the drained cooked grains with sautéed onions, orange zest and juice, lemon juice, crushed garlic, green onion, chopped dried apricots, arugula and toasted pistachios.In order to use less oil, we sometimes brown our sliced onions in the oven. Although the onions take longer to brown this way, roasting them is easier than frying, as the onions don’t burn as readily and need less attention (see recipe).MUJADDARAH (MEJADRA) – MUSHY LENTILS AND RICEThis recipe is from Levant. Author Anissa Helou writes that this is a typical dish to serve for lunch on spring-cleaning days, “when it is put on to cook early in the morning and left to cool while the women of the house set about washing floors and beating the dust out of carpets.”Helou writes that the dish is usually served at room temperature with a salad, raw onion and flatbread. Her grandmother served it with a big bowl of cabbage and tomato salad flavored with lemon juice, olive oil, crushed garlic, salt and semi-hot red pepper.You can vary the recipe by pureeing the lentils before adding the onions and rice, writes Helou. “Simply drain the lentils, reserving the cooking water, then put them in a food processor and process until smooth. Return to the pan with the cooking water and finish as below.”One of the options for spicing is seven-spice mixture, which in Lebanon and Syria is made of black pepper, nutmeg, cinnamon, allspice, cloves, ginger and coriander. You can substitute baharat.Makes 4 servings❖ 2 cups (400 gr. or 14 oz.) brown lentils, soaked for 30 minutes in cold water (enough to cover the lentils by 2 to 3 fingers)
❖ 100 ml. (7 Tbsp. or 3½ fluid ounces) extra-virgin olive oil
❖ 3 medium-sized onions, peeled and finely chopped
❖ 50 gr. (¼ cup or 2 oz.) short-grain white rice, rinsed under cold water and drained
❖ 1 tsp. ground cinnamon or ground cumin
❖ 1 tsp. ground allspice or seven-spice mixture
❖ ½ tsp. finely ground black pepper
❖ Sea salt to taste
Drain and rinse the lentils and put in a very large saucepan with 4 liters (4 quarts) of water.Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat to medium – give the lentils a good stir in case some have stuck to the bottom of the pan – and leave the pot to bubble gently for 1 hour or until the lentils are tender and the water has reduced by two-thirds.In the meantime, put the olive oil in a frying pan, place over medium heat, and when the oil is hot, fry the sliced onions until they become soft and transparent. Using a slotted spoon, transfer half of the softened onions onto a plate and continue frying the rest until they caramelize and turn a rich dark brown, without actually letting them burn. Remove with the slotted spoon and place on several layers of paper towels, spreading them out in a thin layer so that they drain well and become crisp.When the lentils are cooked, add the rice to the pan. Tip in the softened onions and their frying oil, and season with the spices and a little salt. Simmer uncovered for 20 minutes, stirring regularly, until the rice is done and the mixture has thickened, but without letting it dry out. Taste and adjust the seasoning if necessary.Immediately pour the lentils and rice into a shallow serving bowl or into four deep plates, and allow to cool. Scatter the caramelized onions over the lentils before serving at room temperature.OVEN-BROWNED ONIONS
Use these browned onions to garnish lentils with rice or other legume and grain dishes.Occasionally I roast small eggplant cubes and diced sweet peppers along with the onions and add them as a non-traditional topping for mejadra.Makes 4 servings as topping
❖ 3 onions, halved and sliced
❖ 2 Tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil
❖ Salt to taste
❖ Freshly ground pepper to taste (optional)
Preheat oven to 190°C (375°F). Put onion slices in a large roasting pan. Add olive oil and sprinkle lightly with salt. Mix well.Bake for 45 minutes, stirring three times and adding a little more olive oil if onions become dry. If onions are not very tender and have not browned enough, continue baking for 15 minutes, stirring every 5 minutes, until they are deep golden brown. Taste and adjust seasoning, adding pepper if desired. Serve hot, warm or at room temperature.
Faye Levy is the author of Feast from the Mideast.