By Joel Denker
The chopped onions were sizzling in olive oil and were ready to be added to the pot of lentils simmering on the stove. I measured out a cup of rice which I mixed in with the lentils. I seasoned the blend with a couple of tablespoons of black pepper. While waiting for the dish to finish, I cut up onion wedges which I fried until they browned. I took them out and put them aside.
In a sauce pan, I started heating Italian whole tomatoes which I dosed with red pepper. After about twenty minutes, when the rice was cooked and the lentils were still nutty and tender, I took the pot off the flames and ladled out two helpings for my wife, Peggy, and myself. I crowned each plate with several spoonfuls of tomato sauce and garnished them with the fried onions.
I was experimenting, trying to make an earthy lentil dish that would combine two traditions, the Lebanese and the Egyptian. The Lebanese prepare a version like mine with rice and lentils, but without tomato sauce. They call it mujaddara. The wonderfully descriptive Arabic word, food scholar Charles Perry explains, means “pockmarked dish.”
The Egyptians, who spark their creation with a peppery tomato sauce, also fortify it with macaroni. Kushary (or kushari) is a popular street food in Egypt, where it is vended from carts. As an Egyptian cab driver told me, “you have hot dog stand, we have kushary.”
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To learn more about lentils, see The Carrot Purple and Other Curious Stories of the Food We Eat, coming in October from Rowman & Littlefield: https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781442248861/The-Carrot-Purple-and-Other-Curious-Stories-of-the-Food-We-Eat.
