Recipe: Mjadara (Levantine Lentiles and Rice)
Average Read Time: 2 Mintues
If you’ve met me, you know how much I love food! I bring muffins when I visit my friends, I cook a big soup to drop off with postpartum families, and I attempt wild phylo-wrapped salmon for New Years Eve. Cooking and feeding people are one of the ways I take care of myself, and care for my community.
I also believe food is incredibly important in the perinatal period. During pregnancy, food is fuel to help you continue to grow your baby, the placenta nourishing them, and giving energy to yourself! In labor and delivery, you need energy to complete the very physical task of welcoming your baby into the world. That energy can come in a wide variety of forms - saline IVs in a hospital, fruit leathers eaten during early labor, honey sticks given in between pushing (blog about food during labor and delivery coming soon!). In the postpartum period, your body is in recovery. Food nourishes your body to help it adjust to your new normal. And if you’re nursing, you need at least 500 additional calories a day to produce the food necessary to feed your baby!
This blog is the first of many where I share recipes I’ve adapted or created to nourish perinatal families. And I’m starting with one that is very close to my heart - Mjadara!
Firstly, it’s a recipe that I grew up eating! Mjadara is a dish that comes from my ancestral homeland - Lebanon! People have been eating versions of this dish in the Middle East for many centuries. Actually, the first recorded recipe comes from the Kitab al-Tabikh, a cookbook written by Mohammad bin Hasan al-Baghdadi in 1226!
Secondly, this dish is filling and filled with nutrients! Lentils are a great, vegetarian source of protein, something that’s essential both for pregnancy and for the postpartum period. In the fall and winter, I serve mjadara with yogurt and roasted veggies, adding in more fiber and vitamins and minerals. Roasted sweet potato, cauliflower, carrots, onions, etc. all make great additions to this dish! In the spring and summer, I add this to a salad for a hit of fresh veggies! You can get creative to make this meal something healthy and delicious.
Please note: my addition of cumin in this recipe is controversial! My grandmother’s recipe calls for cumin, so that’s how I’ve been making it for years. My mom, on the other hand, swears that there’s no cumin in mjadara! The image above is a copy of my grandmother’s recipe. Notice that my mom crossed out cumin before giving this to me! I’ve asked around and the jury is out on what the “correct” way to cook this is. Add cumin if you want, and skip it if you don’t!
Ingredients:
1 cup brown lentils
4 cups water
1 yellow onion
⅓ cup rice
Cumin
Salt
Pepper
Steps:
In a medium pot, bring lentils and water to a boil. Once boiling, turn heat to a simmer and let it cook uncovered for 20 minutes.
In the meantime, cut up the onion into small chunks. Add olive oil into a pan and saute the onion until it’s almost burnt. You can decide how burnt based on preference - I love a darkly burnt onion, but not everyone does!
Once the lentils have cooked for 20 minutes, add in cooked onions, the rice, and cumin, salt and pepper to taste. Cover and let the dish cook without disturbance for 20 more minutes.
Serve with your favorite veggies and yogurt, over a salad, or by itself!
Sahten! (Enjoy!)
Looking for more delicious recipes? Send me a message here! I’d love to share more recipes with you.
