Meatless Mondays: Mujaddara with Spiced Yogurt

I'm continuing my Meatless Mondays series with a Mujaddara--an Israeli rice and lentils dish--that has a modern spin to it, adding caramelized onions and a spiced yogurt sauce.  This recipe is from Food52 website.  I have adapted it slightly as I was unable to find one of the main ingredients (Puy lentils).  I used canned lentils instead.  If you can find the Puy--or French lentils, I would recommend using them.  It does not add that much more work to the recipe.  You can find a link to the recipe here.

Mujadarra ingredients:

 3/4 cup Puy lentils (French lentils--tiny dark brown) or canned black lentils

1 teaspoon salt, divided

1 cup Jasmine rice

2 tablespoons butter

3 tablespoons olive oil

6 cups thinly sliced onions (about 3 medium)

Spiced Yogurt ingredients:

1/2 cup Greek yogurt

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon cumin

1/2 teaspoon coriander

1/2 teaspoon spicy paprika

3 tablespoons chopped fresh mint

juice and zest of half a lemon

1/4 teaspoon salt

Preheat oven to 400º.

Lentils: 

If you have the dried lentils, place them in a large pot with 1/2 teaspoon salt and 4 cups water and bring to a boil.  Reduce heat and simmer about 20 minutes, till they're soft but not mushy.  Drain and rinse pot. 

If you are using the canned lentils, open can, rinse well, and drain.

Rice:

Place rice, the remaining 1/2 teaspoon salt, and 1 1/2 cups water to the pot.  Set heat to medium and bring to a boil.  Now, here's the interesting part that I thought would NEVER work:

When water starts to boil, cover pot and transfer to oven.  Cook for 17 minutes.  Remove from oven, uncover and fluff with fork.  And it's done perfectly!  So easy--and I'm not good at cooking rice.

 

Caramelized Onions:

While rice cooks, add butter and 2 tablespoons olive oil to a deep saute pan over medium-low heat.  When butter has mostly melted, add onions and toss to cover with butter and oil.

After about 5 minutes, when onions have softened slightly and have started to release their liquid, raise heat to medium and cook 10 to 12 minutes longer--or until they are very soft and browned.  If pan gets too dry, add water by the the tablespoon.

  When onions are well browned, add extra 2 tablespoons olive oil and raise heat to high.  Cook another 3 to 4 minutes, until bottom layer of onions has charred and crisped.  Try not to stir them too much at this point.  The recipe doesn't call for this, but I added some salt to taste here.  There's nothing like salted caramelized onions!

Combine rice, lentils, and most of the onions in large serving bowl--or like I did, the pot you cooked the rice in.  Let sit about 15 minutes, to blend the flavors together--the dish improves with age.  Taste, and add more onions if desired.  You may want to add more salt and some pepper to your taste.

Yogurt:

Mix all ingredients together in a small bowl.  Easy!

If the mujaddara has cooled, reheat in a low oven or the microwave for a few minutes.

Serve with a big scoop of the mujaddara and a dollop of the spiced yogurt.

Next time I make this, I may try it with some dried currents--or even dried cherries--and some chopped almonds.

Enjoy!