Anissa's Mujaddarah

The most delicious pantry staple

If you like the crisp edges of lasagne, the soaked croutons, the whipped cream that gets icy around the chocolate scoop - you’re in the right place.

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Mujaddarah—the Lebanese dish of lentils, rice, and caramelized onions—is so good and so useful it ought to be as popular as, say, hummus or cacio e pepe. It requires only pantry ingredients, but can do so much for you. It can be both a vegetarian feast and a side to grilled meat. It’s appropriate in winter, eaten warm, and at a summer barbecue, at room temperature. It’s good for you, but that will never cross your mind as you spoon tangles of sweet onions and soft, ricey lentils into your mouth.

But outside of the Middle East, a lot of people haven’t heard of it. In fact, when I fed it to friends a few weeks ago, they oohed and ahhed and said it was one of my best ideas yet. And while I agree, it is not at all my own…

So I got in touch with Anissa Helou, a scholar and excellent cook of Lebanese cuisine, whose work I’ve always turned to when I want to know more about the region and its food. I asked her if she could teach us about the dish and galvanize our corner of the internet to fold it into their repertoires. As it turned out, Anissa had just finished a tour for her 11th book, Lebanon: Cooking the Food of My Homeland, in which there is not one, but three recipes for mujaddarah.

I have the book in my hands, and without digressing too much, I have to tell you that it has provided a bout of inspiration….I want to cook every single dish in the chapters “Cooked in Extra Virgin Olive Oil” and “Stuffed Vegetables.” (First will be Lebanese “Parmigiana”—a recipe from Deir Intar without cheese, and with chickpeas.) You can get a copy here and find more of Anissa’s work here, and now on to mujaddarah!

The first thing Anissa explained to me is that mujaddarah is not one fixed dish so much as a family of dishes that incorporate grains and pulses flavored with olive oil-stewed onions. There are versions where the lentils and rice are cooked down until they’re porridge-y; versions made with bulgur instead of rice, or beans instead of lentils; some flavored with cumin, seven spice, cinnamon, or quite simply black pepper; versions where the caramelized onions are dissolved into the pot, and some whose onions are kept crisp and crown the dish.

Across all mujaddarahs, the unifying and defining feature is the cooking of the onions. “The right doneness and the right color are necessary,” says Anissa. They need to be deeply golden and chewy-crisp. She described her method carefully: “Start the onions over higher heat until the oil bubbles energetically around them. Then lower the heat and let them slowly color. Then, toward the end, increase the heat again to crisp the edges. And when they’re soft and brown, don’t dump them onto paper towels. Put them in a sieve to keep them crisp,” she said. “Very important. Because the contrast between the velvety rice and lentils and crisp onions is lovely.”

Of all the dish’s iterations, Anissa’s favorite version is Red Mujaddarah. The “Red” in the title doesn’t refer to the color of the lentils, but to the color the onions stain the olive oil when they’re properly cooked. The red oil and most of the onions are poured into the lentils and bulgur to flavor them, and the rest of the onions are placed on top of the dish.

Anissa flavors her onions with “cinnamon—the spice of my memory”—to recall her mother’s cooking. Her mother would make mujaddarah early in the morning and let it cool while she cleaned the carpets, draping them over the balcony and beating them with bamboo all the while chatting with neighbors.

Anissa recommends you start with a recipe and then make the dish your own. Choose which grain and which pulse you prefer, along with the ratios of each. Choose a favorite spice to add to the onions, or leave them plain. However you make it, Anissa says, “it has everything you need: olive oil, fiber, protein, onions, flavor.”

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Anissa’s Red Mujaddarah, Müjaddarah Hamra

“This müjaddarah is described as red not because it is made with red lentils but rather because the onions are fried until dark brown, but not burned, in order to color the liquid in which the lentils and bulgur wheat are cooked. This recipe is from the south, and in particular from Deir Intar, a village that is famous for it

Serves 4 to 6

3 cups (525 g) dried brown lentils, soaked in plenty of cold water for 30 minutes
³/₄ cup (180 ml) extra virgin olive oil
3 large onions (about 600 g), peeled, finely chopped
Just over 1 cup (200 g) coarse bulgur wheat
Sea salt

Drain the lentils and put them in a medium pot. Add 1¹/₂ quarts (1¹/₂ liters) water and place over medium heat. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat to medium-low and let bubble gently for 20 minutes.

While the lentils are cooking, put the olive oil and chopped onions in a large frying pan and place over medium heat. As soon as the oil starts sizzling around the onions, reduce the heat to medium-low and cook, stirring regularly, until the onions have turned dark brown, 35 to 45 minutes—be sure not to let them burn, which they will do very quickly in the end if you don’t watch them carefully.

Anissa's onions

Add the bulgur wheat to the lentils together with the onions and their oil. Mix well and season with salt to taste. Cook for another 15 minutes, or until the liquid is fully absorbed and everything is done. Serve hot, warm, or at room temperature.” - Anissa

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