Muaddas

This dish of rice and brown lentils, with fried onions, is found in most Middle Eastern countries, most often called mujadara (and other spelling variations). I think the proportions of rice and lentils varies from place to place, and also how well the onions are fried - some recipes garnish with crispy onions.

I have one book of traditional Middle Eastern recipes - The Complete Middle East Cookbook, by Tess Mallos - and her section on recipes from the Gulf States calls this dish Muaddas. The recipe uses 1 part lentils to 4 parts rice, plus a large onion. I scaled down the recipe to serve two, so probably used a little more onion than in the recipe. The idea is to fry the onions until just beginning to colour, stir in the raw long-grain rice and lentils then add double the amount of water and some salt, and cook until the water is absorbed and the grains cooked - the recipe suggests about 45 minutes. Because I was using basmati rice, which cooks much faster than the lentils, I part-cooked them first, which reduced the cooking time to 20 minutes.

I served a vaguely Middle Eastern vegetable casserole with the Muaddas, flavoured with the spice mix Baharat, garlic, ginger and chilli. Muaddas made a nice change from plain rice, but it wasn't anything special - I expected the fried onions to add more flavour.

I made this dish for the season finale of the Formula 1 Foods challenge on Caroline Makes, as I needed a recipe from the United Arab Emirates to celebrate the last race taking place in Abu Dhabi. I would have liked to find a dessert or sweetmeat to make, but many traditional recipes from that part of the world rely on yeast doughs and/or deep frying, neither of which I wanted to tackle. I am pleased that I've stuck with this challenge until the end - I think I missed out a couple of rounds when totally lacking in inspiration, but produced something most of the time!

Cranberry-Date Crumble Squares...

...with an unusual added ingredient!

The AlphaBakes challenge (rules here) is hosted jointly by Ros from The More Than Occasional Baker and Caroline from Caroline Makes. This month the challenge is hosted by Ros, and the random letter generator has thrown up the letter L. That means baking something whose name begins with L, such as Linzertorte, or something containing a significant ingredient beginning with L.

In a bid to find something really different from the most obvious ingredients, such as lemon or lime, I came up with Lentils. At first I was going to make something savoury, but then I found this really awesome Canadian site which throws lentils into cookies, desserts, brownies and cakes with wild abandon. I was really spoilt for choice, but in the end chose these crumble topped squares filled with dates and cranberries.

I followed the recipe as written, but I rubbed the chilled butter into the flour and oat mixture rather than mixing it in with a fork (how would that work?). I used a 50:50 mixture of spelt and wholemeal flour, as I didn't have enough spelt flour on it's own. When it came to making the filling, the instructions weren't really clear, so I chopped the dates into pieces the size of the cranberries. I used a mixture of fresh juice (from one small orange) and water, and added the zest of the orange too.

These squares were outstandingly tasty! I think this was mainly due to the thick filling of dates and cranberries, which cooked together to make something really different from either on their own! It's a combination of fresh and dried fruit that I've never seen before, and wouldn't ever have thought of on my own, but I'm really glad I tried it. The base was quite soft, although the topping was crisp and crunchy, and you would never guess that lentils were involved in any way. Despite the amount of sugar used, in both the crumb and the filling, the squares did not seem over-sweet.

Adding lentils has all sorts of health benefits - lentils have a low GI value, contain protein and fibre and are rich in several minerals such as potassium and iron. When cooked they add moisture to baked goods in the same way as fruit or vegetable purées, which means you can often cut down on the butter in the recipe, as in this one. A comparable oat square recipe would perhaps use double the amount of butter.

In addition to the health benefits of lentils, there are other ingredients in these squares which have health benefits - oats contain fibre and may help reduce cholesterol; wholemeal flour has more fibre than white; dates contain fibre and minerals and have natural sweetness; cranberries are packed with antioxidants and sometimes called a superfood. The squares are high in sugar, which can be worrying, but most people are happy to eat some sugar as an occasional treat. The other lower GI ingredients here balance the effects of sugar and would help keep blood sugar levels steady.


I think these health benefits probably also qualify these cranberry-date crumble squares for this month's Tea Time Treats challenge, which is to make something healthy (or thrifty) for a lunchbox. I'd certainly appreciate the energy and nutrients packed into a piece of this, when balanced with a low carb salad, or something similar. Tea Time Treats (rules here) is hosted alternately by Karen from Lavender and Lovage, and Jane from The Hedge Combers, who is this month's host.