Levant has Popular Vegan Carby Comfort Dishes

My middle-eastern friend, Jackie, sent me a text following the Lebanon’s Best + Tasty Breakfasts post. She loved it and even sent a link to her mother. Then she suggested I look into the Egyptian National Dish Koshary, which she called a badass Egyptian street-food. That research then led me to Mujaddara. Looked both up and OMG this is a carby, vegan, and heavenly delightful and comforting dish.

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Egyptian Koshary

I generaly start at Wikipedia to find a good, succinct definition of my topic. In this case they wrote: Koshary, kushari or koshari (Egyptian Arabic: كشري [ˈkoʃɑɾi]) is Egypt’s national dish and a widely popular street food. A traditional Egyptian staple, mixing pasta, rice and brown lentils, and topped with a zesty tomato sauce, garlic vinegar and garnished with chickpeas and crispy fried onions.

In many ways, this is a mysterious dish. Jackie tells me that no one really knows where Koshary came from, some say it came from India, while other think its predecessor might be the other dish I am writing about today, Mujaddara. Additionally, it seems no one knows when this dish was created, although everyone seems to agree it was recent. Some articles I read imply it might have been developed in the 1950s. So while mystery surrounds this dish, clearly it is obvious that millions love koshary and eat it often.

This dish is a vegan’s carb and protein heaven with a spice and savory flavor that fills bellies, provided it is cooked with veggie oil and not meat fat. It’s traditionally topped with crispy fried onions, but also can have a sauce topping, or both.

In terms of sauces, one option is a vinegar garlic sauce, and the other a spicy tomato sauce or both. As condiments, some add optional sprinkles of garlic juice, garlic vinegar, and/or hot sauce.

But variations of this dish are everywhere, as this is a great pantry dish, and pantries contain different items depending on where you are in the world. Seeing the photos of this dish, you can tell the variations focus on the presentation of the layers, but also which sauces are used to augment the dish. Or which, if any, herbs are used to sprinkle on top of the dish, and how many onions are added.

Koshary Recipe

This is a layered pantry dish where you can use up leftover items in your pantry and present a colorful dish as well. So you cook and prepare everything first, then it is the art of plating the ingredients that take center stage.

Is this hard to make? Not really, but it is very time consuming when you first make it, as you are making rice, pasta, lentils, garbanzo beans, 2 sauces, and condiments. So, I read many recipes and watched Youtube videos, in order to present the steps to making thisdish. (Anyone who disagrees with this recipe, please email me corrections.)

Crispy or Caramelized Onion Topping

• Goal is for caramelized crispy onions not burnt onions
  • Cut 1-2 large onions in half, then slice into thin half moons and place in a bowl
  • Add 1t Kosher salt and mix well to release excess moisture. (Less moisture = crispy)
  • While that sits, add 1/4C garbanzo flour into a plastic bag with pinch of freshly ground pepper, salt, and ground cumin. Mix well.
  • Squeeze a handful of onion slices to get out the water, put in the flour-bag and shake.
  • Meanwhile, heat skillet with ~½C avocado oil
  • Goal is to coat each onion slice with the flour, then remove from bag + place in skillet.
  • Fry until one side is tan, flip, then place the cooked onions on a draining rack in a baking sheet (to catch excess oil).
  • Repeat until all onions are cooked.
  • Reserve the oil for use below as it now has an infusion of onion and cumin flavor and will help increase the depth of the dish.
• Or you can buy crispy onions, generally shallots, and use that as a topping. Although you will then not create the infused oil that will help with the overall dish.

Tomato Sauce (Dimaa)

• In cast iron skilt heat 1T of the reserved oil from making the onion.
• Add 1 small grated yellow onion, cook until translucent.
• Then add 4 smashed and minced garlic cloves.
• Add 1t ground coriander.
• Add 1t crushed red pepper flakes, and sauté ~1min.
• And add 1t sweet or medium hot paprika (not smoky).
• Stir into the skillet 28-oz Pomi peeled, deseeded and crushed tomatoes with a pinch each of kosher salt and freshly ground pepper. Mix well.
• Bring the mix up to a simmer for ~15 minutes to make the sauce thicken.
• Turn to very low and mix in 1-2T distilled white vinegar, depending upon taste.
• Cover and keep warm till serving. Stir occasionally to make sure the sauce is not sticking to the bottom of the pan.

Cumin Sauce (Daqaa)

• In a small bowl mix in all the ingredientsd below and whisk.
  • 3T distilled white vinegar.
  • 4 microplaned garlic.
  • ½C hot water.
  • 1 tsp ground cumin (when I did this I toasted the seeds first for added flavor, then used a grinder to make the powder.)
  • ½t salt (more or less to taste).
  • ½t ground black pepper.
  • Pinch hot paprika.

Brown Lentils and White Rice

I have seen some recipes that call for the lentils to be full cooked and layered separately, but others combine the lentils and rice. Here I have combined them.

• Brown Lentils
  • Clean and cook 1½C brown lentils.
  • Place lentils in 4C boiling water, add a pinch of salt and ground cumin and stir.
  • Then reduce heat to low and cook for ~30+ minutes.
  • Test the lentils by bite, if almost soft and just a bit crunchy it is done enough.
  • Drain water using a colander, but save the water.
  • Add the lentils to the rice pot, as it will finish cooking with the rice.
• White Rice
  • Clean by rinsing and soaking 1½C basmati white rice for ~5-10 minutes.
  • Drain and add the rice with the lentils and 1T avocado oil in a larger pot.
  • Add a pinch kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper and ½t ground coriander.
  • Mix well over heat for a few minutes.
  • Then add the lentil water (and more water if needed), bring to a boil, lid, and simmer for ~25-30min until both lentils and rice are done.
  • When done turn off heat and and let the mixture steam for ~5-10 minutes.

Elbow Pasta

• Cook 2C elbow pasta in salted boiling water per box instructions.
• Drain, add a pinch of salt and freshly ground black pepper and mix.

Garbanzo Beans

• Open a jar of garbanzo or chickpeas, rinse and drain the liquid.
• Warm up on the stove or in the microwave.

Plating the dish

• Fluff up the lentils and rice and mix well. Plate this first on the bottom of the serving dish.
• Then add the pasta and spread that around on top of the rice leaving a bit of rice.
• Add the garbanzo beans
• Spread the tomato sauce on top of the pasta leaving a bit of the pasta showing
• Finally add half the onions
• Serve leftover onions and sauces in side dishes

Those that know, will say the dish will last for ~3-5 days in the fridge, but more important is to not reheat in the oven as that will dry out the pasta. The recommendation is to use the microwave to reheat.

Koshary Nutrition

You might think that this dish would be all carbs, but it turns out it is a really good meal with essential nutrients, fiber, vitamins (VitC), and minerals to get you through the day. It also has an amazing amount of protein, as well as calories: 758c per Cup (1).

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Arabic Mujaddara

Mujaddara is a classic Arabic recipe featuring a few similar ingredients to Koshary, that is, cooked lentils and rice, caramelized onions, herbs and yogurt. Wikipedia writes, Mujaddara is the Arabic word for “pockmarked”; the lentils among the rice resemble pockmarks. The first recorded recipe for mujaddara appears in Kitab al-Tabikh, a cookbook compiled in 1226 by al-Baghdadi in Iraq. Without meat, it was a medieval Arab dish commonly consumed by the poor.

As with other foods, there are great variations across the Arab world. In Lebanon, Wikipedia reports, the word mjaddara refers to the puréed version of the dish, rather than the version with whole grains and lentils. Palestinians, it writes, tend to replace the rice with bulgur; the dish is called M’jaddaret-Burghul to distinguish it from the M’jaddara which is served with rice.

Mujaddara Recipe

This dish has the lentil and rice base, but really it seems the onions are the critical component. You can have them crispy or not, but they must be well caramelized.

• Caramelized brownish onions
  • Heat ¼C extra virgin olive oil in a skillet and cook 3 sliced yellow or white onions cut in half moon shapes.
  • Remove the cooked onions into a bowl if not crispy, but if crispy then place to drain oil from the veggie
  • Add 1/4C of water to the skillet to deglaze, then scrape all the oil and goodies into the lentil pot.
• Lentils
  • Prep 1C dry brown lentils that are rinsed well.
  • Combine lentils with the goodies from the skillet and add 1-3/4C water, 1t kosher salt, 1/2t freshly ground pepper, 1T ground cumin, and 1T garlic powder.
  • Cook over medium heat. Bring to a simmer, then reduce heat to a low simmer, add lid and cook for ~15min.
    • I cook these now because I did not soak the lentils before hand as I wanted them to get some seasoning and spice on their own, before the rice soaks up everything.
    • The lentils should be par-cooked and finish cooking in the rice.
• Rice
  • Rinse the rice until the water runs clear, and soak for ~15-20min while lentils are cooking. Once lentils are ready, start with the rice.
  • Add 3/4C hot water to the lentil pot (I tend to use homemade broth instead of water for added flavor), 3/4C rinsed + soaked white basmati rice, along with an additional 1t kosher salt.
  • Mix the lentils and rice.
  • Re-cover the pot, and cook an additional ~40 minutes.
  • Taste to make sure rice is not mushy, and lentils are cooked through.
• Plating
  • Plate the rice and lentil mixture
  • Spread the onions on the top and serve

Cooks say that this dish is usually served with a salad, and some yogurt, hummus or tahini sauce, all of which sound good to me. Some Vegans add more herbs (mint, parsley, cilantro, etc.), shaved carrots, or other veggies to up the nutrition.

For another variation, cooks add additional spices to the normal onion, salt, pepper and cumin. They may add 1/2t to 1t of smashed allspice seeds, ground cinnamon, turmeric, and black pepper.

Conclusion

I continue to use the archiac term Levant region, for it really does cover the actual area in which these foods, with all their glorious variations, have existed through time and are still eaten today.

The USA American diet often has meat in everything, so one question is can you add meat to this dish. I suppose the answer has to be yes, but why would you? It has plenty of protein, the flavor and texture of the meals are already good and chewy. The aroma of onions and rice are already appetizing. Nothing really needs to change.

—Patty

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