Going Green: Mujaddara for Dinner

Since we got married, Hubtastic and I have tried to cook at least one vegetarian meal a week for dinner. We both regard environmental care as a priority, so this was a natural baby step to take. But, as with anything I cook, I’m not going to make a dish just because it’s good for the planet (or for me)- it has to be just as satisfying as a carnivorous dish or it gets kicked out of the rotation.

I’ll admit, we’ve had a few not-so-great meals, but one of the serendipitous effects of this challenge is that we are forced to stretch our boundaries and use ingredients that would normally be overlooked. In the summer, strips of roasted tofu provided a savory-crispy-dense bite to summer rolls, but in the colder months, lentils have been King. And we’ve found some really spectacular recipes that I never would have given a second thought to if meat had been a given at every meal.

The latest success was Mujaddara, a Lebanese lentil-and-rice dish that caught my attention on the cover of the latest Milk Street Magazine. I genuinely cannot determine why it instantly appealed to me (it’s pretty drab, color-wise), but I just had to try it. I think it had something to do with the crispy onions…

All the ingredients were already in my pantry- other side-benefits of vegetarian meals is that many of the ingredients are shelf-stable and dirt cheap, especially in bulk. Since it was a new technique, I set aside a weekend afternoon to cook so I would not be too stressed out after a long day at work. Cooking is a lot less fun when you’re watching the clock tick closer to bedtime while waiting for stubborn lentils to soften.

As usual, I can’t leave well enough alone, so I made some changes right off the bat, which I’ll share here. I know our tastes well enough to know we’d need more spices (and more salt), and the only rice I had was brown rice, which takes longer to cook than white.

I used (more or less) 4 smashed garlic cloves, 4 bay leaves, 4 tsp cumin, and 1 tsp allspice along with about 1/2 tsp black pepper (I never measure black pepper) and 1.5 Tbsp salt. This all gets dumped right in to 5.5 cups of water to boil.

To account for the extended rice cooking time, I tossed in 1 cup brown lentils (green would also work) and 1 cup brown rice into the boiling spice-water at the same time. One less (admittedly minor) step to attend to meant more uninterrupted time with my husband, and fewer things to remember to do.

Covered and simmering away over medium heat, the mixture had softened and absorbed all the water around 35 minutes later. Plenty of time to fry up the crispy onions, clean all the dishes, and still have a few minutes to sit and relax.

If the spices in the boiling water didn’t smell good enough, there were also the onions (2 of them, sliced thin into half-moons) frying in olive oil (enough to cover the bottom of a large saute pan). Divine. We sat around in the kitchen instead of the living room to enjoy the full effect.

The onions fry slowly enough– about 10 minutes over medium-high– that the process is not stressful; occasional stirring helps keep the coloring even. Besides, those little blackened crunches that form in hot-spots provide good contrast to the golden brown crispy bits. After sprinkling with a generous amount of salt, I literally could’ve eaten the whole plateful.

The onions can sit around as long as needed to give the lentils and rice time to finish cooking, so no pressure there with timing everything perfectly. I finished the dish off with some sliced scallions, which added a sharpness and freshness to the dish, though I suspect any fresh herb would work well here.

There’s something about a meal made out of lentils and whole grains that makes me feel all warm and fuzzy. Maybe it’s the mental comfort in knowing I’m doing something good for the Earth, or maybe it’s just the fiber. Regardless, such a flavorful, soft, crunchy, salty, filling meal is certainly worth going in my regular repetoire.

So it turns out that this vegetarian commitment has not only been good for the planet, but also budget, body, mind, and spirit. Pretty good deal, huh?