Mujaddara (Rice and Lentils with Meat)

History

Mujaddara (مجدرة) takes its name from an Arabic root meaning 'pockmarked' — the dark lentils scattered through the pale rice were thought to resemble a pocked or scarred surface. Al-Baghdadī's Kitāb al-Ṭabīkh (1226) preserves what is generally cited as the dish's oldest surviving written recipe, a version of rice, lentils, and meat; in his own instructions it is prepared like plain fluffed rice (al-aruzz al-mufalfal) but left uncoloured by saffron, with lentils in about half the quantity of the rice. This meat-enriched form was festive food, eaten at special occasions and celebrations. Stripped of its meat, however, mujaddara was humble everyday fare, long associated with the medieval poor — a status caught in a well-worn Eastern-Arab saying that 'a hungry man would be willing to sell his soul for a dish of mujaddara.' The pairing of lentils and grain is far older than 1226, and the dish is often linked to the biblical 'mess of pottage,' the lentil stew for which Esau sold his birthright in Genesis 25; that connection is evocative but unproven, and is best treated as tradition rather than documented descent. Beloved and enduring, mujaddara is still cooked across the Arab world today, shared by Muslim and Christian communities alike.

Ingredients

• meat and rice
• lentils

Instructions

1. Follow the Aruzz Mufalfal method but omit the saffron dye.
2. Add lentils equal to about half the rice and proceed as for Aruzz Mufalfal.