Moudjendra (lentils and rice)

[steorra]

As I mentioned in my first post in this community, one of my major struggles with cooking is coordinating cooking and shopping. This is a recipe I find useful because all its ingredients don't go bad quickly, and therefore are easy to keep in stock, so I can make it even if I haven't planned ahead of time and gone shopping. Other things I find useful about it:
-It's vegan, and so is useful for the times when I need vegan recipes.
-It makes a large pot of food, so there are lots of leftovers which serve well as reheatable meals.
-It freezes tolerably well in single-serving-sized containers.
-Combined with vegetables on the side, it makes a complete meal.

It does have disadvantages; here are some obvious ones. It takes quite a while from start to finish. (It looks like it ought to take about an hour, but it usually takes me at least an hour and a half, and I prefer to budget two hours.) It requires considerable standing at the stove and stirring the frying onions and garlic.

I don't know if it will be appropriate to anyone else's needs, but here it is:

Moudjendra
(Lentils and Rice from Cyprus; adapted from Madhur Jaffrey's World Vegetarian)

Ingredients:
2 c. dry brown/green lentils
1 c. long-grain white rice
1 1/2 t. salt
7 c. water

7 T. olive oil
1 medium to large onion
1/4 c. lemon juice
3 cloves garlic

Instructions:
Combine lentils and water in a large pot. Bring to a boil. Turn heat down and simmer for 25 minutes. Add rice and salt and stir them in. Bring to a boil again. Turn heat back down and simmer for 25 minutes more. Mix lemon juice in.

While the lentils and rice are cooking[*], cut the onion in half lengthwise and then slice it into thin slices. Slice garlic cloves thinly. Heat olive oil in a frying pan and add onions and garlic to hot oil. Stir and fry until onion is medium brown.

Pour onion mixture over lentils-and-rice mixture and stir it all together. Ready to eat!

[*] I still haven't figured out exactly when in the cooking process it works best to start on the onions and garlic. If I start chopping them as soon as I put the lentils on to cook, they're done well before the lentil-rice mixture is ready. If I start chopping them after I add the rice to the lentils, the lentils and rice are done considerably before the onions are sufficiently fried. The latter is preferable to the former, but it would be nice to get them done at almost the same time. The details of timing will of course depend on how fast you chop things.

Comments

[vilakins]

I really like the sound of that and I have all the ingredients on hand too. Thank you!

[kake]

I love this stuff!

I don't know if this is a useful suggestion for you, but it strikes me that the onions-and-garlic could perhaps be done in bulk and then frozen. I haven't tried this with shallow-frying, or with garlic included, but one thing I try to keep on hand in the freezer is a big tub of deep-fried sliced onions — they don't stick together, and you can just throw them into things from frozen.

The reason for deep-frying rather than shallow-frying is that it's really quick and you don't have to stand there stirring, but if you had patience and a big enough frying pan you could do it with shallow-frying. I think if you wanted to do garlic with the deep-frying method it might work better to do it separately from the onions, and not slice it too thinly.

[pebblerocker]

Those ingredients are just about guaranteed to be around when needed (except the lemon juice, my lemons usually go mouldy quickly) and it's nice and easy to make. When I make rice and lentils I use brown rice, for a better texture, which means the rice cooks in about the same amount of time as the lentils and they can go into the pot together at the start.

[kyrielle]

Disclaimer: I haven't tried this myself yet (but am planning to).

But would the trick for caramelized onions in the crockpot (using butter or olive oil, your choice, so perfect fit to this recipe) also work with the garlic?

http://www.brownthumbmama.com/2009/09/crock-pot-carmelized-onions.html give or take....