Pilaf with Green Lentils and Caramelized Onions

Pilaf is a part and parcel of our family meals in Sapanca, and we are no different from other Turkish families. When mothers fry a pile of home-made meatballs (köfte) they do not forget to make buttery rice pilaf as a garnish. Pilaf with orzo (dark-brown pasta looking like an oversize rice grain) is cooked everyday at the canteens serving sulu yemekler (stews): indeed, kuru fasulye and such are only right to eat with pilaf and let the grains coat in the tasty gravy. At a kebab restaurant your portion of Urfa kebab arrives with a neat pile of bulgur pilaf reddish with the tomato paste. Stuffing wine leaves, mussels an what not also means preparing pilaf called iç pilavı in Turkish (literally, pilaf for stuffing) that everyone loves for the sweetness of onions, crunch of pine nuts, tartness of the raisins and fragrance of the spices.

And while pilaf accompanies so many meals in Turkey, it often plays the secondary role of a garnish and can’t be served as an independent dish. When I learned about the bulgur pilaf with vegetables my Russian soul nurtured on many kashas was delighted: at last a pilaf that could be enjoyed on its own! I turned out so wrong. After a light lunch of bulgur pilaf and cacık I served once my husband noted that pilaf is not a dish but always a side, and hence our meal was missing its essence - the main.

Needless to say, I was discouraged: never the main and boring to cook. Do I need to bother? Really, after some practice pilaf is such a straightforward affair: in its basic version it is your preferred grain (rice or bulgur in Turkey), generous scoop of fat (hopefully, good butter or olive oil) and sufficient quantity of water or stock to cook the grains. You can add meat, vegetables, nuts, dry fruits, legumes and what not, but the principle remains the same. Some say this simplicity is deceiving: in fact, the ability to make a good pilaf is a measure of a good cook in Turkey, and my mother-in-law believes that mastering Turkish food must start from learning how to make pilaf. But once you learn what’s left besides reproducing the comforting combination of carbohydrates and fats over and over again? I admit, I started neglecting pilaf, and in fact I can’t remember cooking one for myself over the past half a year. Until I came across müceddere, a Turkish version of mejadra or mujaddara, rice pilaf with green lentils and crispy onions.

The dish is Middle Eastern and not surprisingly mostly cooked in the South-East of Turkey (e.g. Kilis bordering Syria). You will find plenty of variations of the dish across the broader region: there will be coarse bulgur instead of rice, spices will be fewer or more elaborate, some would throw in little chunks of meat, some would deep-fry the onion while others will only sauté them.

The onions.. I must note that onions in the pilaf is a delicate matter. I was taught very early in my Turkish cooking career that onions for pilaf can’t be burned (=caramelized) and that there is no single pilaf of the Ottoman roots where onions will be cooked separately from the grains. My attempt to break these rules was cruelly punished by the boycott from the whole family: it was only me and my husband-to-be who ate my wheat berry pilaf with Swiss chard and caramelized onion. That day I learned that caramelized onions and grains are meant to be together; but I also learned that I would be more popular if I master the conventional pilaf of bulgur or rice. I aced both at the expense of my excitement about pilafs as a culinary category.

But still I could not get over the idea of the caramelized onions in the pilaf! Soon I found the proof in the two cookbooks I love: it was a recipe for müceddere in my favorite Turkish cookbook by Ozan and then a Palestinian take on this pilaf interpreted by Ottolenghi in his Jerusalem. I loved the richness of the spices so characteristic for the Jerusalem‘s dishes in general and the fact that a few of them were used whole: whole cumin and coriander seeds gave very familiar Indian notes to the pilaf. To keep it Turkish I did not venture into turmeric and such but happily added allspice commonly found in the iç pilavı.

In the Ozan’s recipe I loved the fact that I don’t need to deep-fry the onions (you really can’t make me deep-fry anything because I strongly dislike the smell of the overheated oil and greasy food): I can just caramelize them and then continue cooking with them. Or, yet better, keep the half in the skillet to cook with the rice (and stick to my mother-in-law’s principle that the onions can’t be cooked separately from the grains in pilaf) and reserve the half to top the cooked pilaf. Also, Ozan makes the dish an ultimate comfort food by throwing orzo, rice-looking pasta, and chickpeas into the mix, but I decided to stay more refined here.

I made it and served with cold zucchini and yogurt soup for my visiting sister and myself. I was in love with pilaf again: filling, richly flavored and light - what more to wish for a good lunch? One more portion was reserved for my husband arriving to Istanbul later that day: I had a bit of minced beef and lamb mix in the fridge so I fried it separately in its own fat (which turned to be more than plenty) and then stirred to the pilaf. Did he say the essence of the meal was missing, you think?