Gary's Cookbook

A Middle Eastern comfort food of the finest kind (thanks to Diana Abu-Jaber for turning me on to this)

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup brown lentils
• 1 cup white rice
• 1/2 onion chopped coarsely
• 1/4 cup butter
• 1 1/2 cups beef broth
• 1/4 tsp ground cumin
• 1 tsp salt (1/2 tsp if the butter is salted or you use bouillon instead of broth)
• 1/2 tsp pepper

Instructions

Soak the lentils in water for at least an hour and then drain
In the pot you will use to cook the rice, melt the butter over low heat. Add the salt, pepper, and cumin.
Add the rice, lentil, and broth. Mix everything together and heat.
When the liquid is boiling, set the burner to low, cover the pot, and let cook - periodically stirring with a fork to keep the rice from sticking too much.

While the rice is cooking, sautée the onions in olive oil until they are nice and soft and carmelized.
When the liquid is long gone and the rice is soft and fluffy, it's done. Serve in a dish and cover the top with the carmelized onions.

Alternatives

This is one dish that, I think, suffers from alternatives. You can use any broth, but nothing works for it quite like beef.
You can substitute olive oil for butter but it's one of the few times that olive oil is a poor substitute. The butter is what makes this so exquisite. I haven't made this with ghee, but I think I'll try it to see if it's the butter flavor or the whey that makes this just so happy-making.

I also have not tried this with other lentils - green, red, yellow, orange - so I don't know how those might change this. It may be worth a try though.

Meals

Anytime you think about serving rice, consider serving this. It goes with everything.