Lentil-rice mix

This is another popular and hearty “mixed polow” usually served with fried or roasted chicken (or ground beef) and considered a casual and convenient dish. Well, I make it in a quite presentable (read fancy) way, without any kind of. Even before I realized how protein rich and nutritious lentil was, I always thought the dish is a perfect vegetarian meal and found it quite hearty on its own. So, my version of “adas polow” is meatless yet simply fancy!

Ingredients (serving 4): Rice, 3 cups. Green lentil” 1 ½ . Onion, 1 big, thinly sliced. Dried seedless raisin ½ cup, washed and dried. Oil: 4-5 tbsp. Turmeric, ¼ tbsp. Ground saffron, 2 teaspoon (1 soaked in 1 tbsp. of hot water for half an hour) salt, pepper and water as needed.

Method: 1. Pick over the lentil, wash and cook in a small pot over medium heat with fresh water and pinch of salt until done but not too soft – this is a key factor: you don’t want mushy lentils. Adjust the cooking time and water so at the end of the cooking process you would not have too much water left. However, if you do get some left, simply drain your lentil, set aside, and keep the water for cooking your rice.

2. Prepare the rice in usual way (soaked in salted water, drained, boiled in lots of water, drained, and steamed cooked for at least one hour). At the stage when you want to mount the rice back in to the pot, mix it with the cooked lentil and follow the rest of the instruction. Note: For this mixed rice, some add a pinch of turmeric to the boiling water, but I prefer the colour of saffron over that of turmeric. So, when I mount the mix back to the pot and just before covering it with the padded lid, I sprinkle a pinch of powdered saffron on the top of the mixed polow. The steam gathered in the pot releases saffron’s taste and colour. While waiting for the rice to be steam cooked, get busy with this last step:

3. In a frying pan stir-fry onion in 2 tbsp. of hot oil until golden (this is your piaz-daagh). Add turmeric and a pinch of salt and pepper and stir for a minute or two. Lastly, add raisins and fry only for a few seconds, just enough to bring out the taste – note that frying raisins for too long make them puffy and too dark and you don’t want that.

4. When the mixed lentil rice is ready to be served, use a large platter and mix it well with 80% of the contents of the pan. Mix the remaining 20% with soaked saffron and use as garnish on the top of the platter. All tastes colors and savory bits of this mix is fairly distributed in the platter, and the very top is only slightly richer.