Jerusalem Night Two: Mejadra!

Mejadra

I just purchased the cookbook Jerusalem, by Yotam Ottolenghi, which I first encountered when I cooked with my friend MC. She brought the book over to my mom's house one night when we were cooking dinner, and I've been scouting it out ever since. I was in Sacramento this past weekend, and hit up a local haunt of mine, the old Tower Books store. I found the one Jerusalem copy they had, and made sure to purchase it shortly after. 

For dinner tonight, I left it up to Riley to decide what we were to make. He started texting me a bunch of recipes and names, but when I heard about this Mejadra, I knew that's what we had to make.

Mejadra is an ancient dish, cooked and enjoyed by many people in the Arab world. As Yotam says in the cookbook, "When served alongside yogurt with cucumber, the sweetly spiced rice and lentils strewn with soft fried onion is as comforting as it gets in Jerusalem." Amen, Yotam. At first bite, you know that this dish is authentic and full of flavor. One bite has you tasting a lot of clove, and the next bite has you tasting cucumber, and the next bite has you tasting cinnamon... and so on and so forth. 

I do admit, you need at least a coffee grinder, spice grinder, or a mortar and pestle to make the herb mix. I suppose you could go all ancient and like, take a hammer to the herbs on a cutting board, but I don't think that's too smart. You may lose a finger. 

Ingredients:

1 1/4 cups brown or green lentils

4 medium onions

3 tablespoons all purpose flour

About 1 cup sunflower oil (I used vegetable oil)

2 teaspoon cumin seeds

1 1/2 tablespoons coriander seeds

1 cup basmati rice

2 tablespoons olive oil

1/2 teaspoon ground turmeric

1 1/2 teaspoons ground all spice

1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

2 teaspoon sugar

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Directions:

1. Place the lentils in a small saucepan, cover with plenty of water, bring to a boil, and cook for 12 to 15 minutes, until the lentils have softened but still have a little bite. Drain and set aside. 

2. Peel the onions and slice thinly. Place on a large flat plate, sprinkle with the flour and 1 teaspoon salt, and mix well with your hands. 

Heat the sunflower oil in a medium heavy-bottomed saucepan placed over high heat. Make sure the oil is hot by throwing in a small piece of onion; it should sizzle vigorously. Reduce the heat to medium-high and carefully (it may spit!) add one-third of the sliced onion. Fry for 5 to 7 minutes, stirring occasionally with a slotted spoon, until the onion takes on a nice golden brown color and turns crispy (adjust the temperature so the onion doesn't fry to quickly and burn). 

Use the spoon to transfer the onion to a colander lined with paper towels and sprinkle with a little more salt. Do the same with the other two batches of onion; add a little extra oil if needed. 

3. Wipe the saucepan in which you fried the onion clean and put in the cumin and coriander seeds. Place over medium heat and toast the seeds for a minute or two. 

Add the rice, olive oil, turmeric, allspice, cinnamon, sugar, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and plenty of black pepper. Stir to coat the rice with the oil and then add the cooked lentils and the water. Bring to a boil, cover with a lid, and simmer over very low heat for 15 minutes. 

4. Remove from the heat, lift off the lid, and quickly cover the pan with a clean tea towel. Seal tightly with the lid and set aside for 10 minutes. 

5. Finally, add half the fried onion to the rice and lentils and stir gently with a fork. Pile the mixture in a shallow serving bowl and top with the rest of the onion.