kushari

For Tracy, who posted about eating this.

~There is another sauceless version of this dish, called kushari asfur (yellow kushari) that I make more frequently as a quick dinner type thing. All you do is throw yellow lentils and white rice together in a pot with twice as much water, and cook. It turns into a yellow creamy rice dish that is pretty blandly comforting on its own, but can be dressed up any way you want. I like it with boiled eggs, caramelized onions, and garlic salt.

The recipe below is for the traditonal street food, a layered dish with sauce that is a bit more time-consuming and generates more dirty pots and pans, but it's my favorite

Serves 4

1/2 cup white rice
1 cup brown lentils
1 cup elbow macaroni, uncooked
3 cups water
1 tblsp veg oil
1 small onion: chop half, slice the other half
1 clove garlic, minced (you can up the garlic if you're into it)
6 oz can tomato paste, diluted in 1 cup water
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
2 tsp white vinegar
hot sauce

combine rice, lentils, and water and bring to boil. Reduce heat, cover and simmer until rice is done (about 25 min). Meanwhile, in separate pot, cook pasta.

Heat oil in small frying pan and add chopped onion and garlic. Saute until tender, but not brown. Add tomato paste, salt, pepper, vinegar, and hot sauce. Stir until heated through.

Saute sliced onions in small pan without oil until they get brown and crispy.

Layer in bowl in this order: macaroni, then rice/lentils, then tomato sauce, then fried onions.
You can either do this in one big bowl family style or in individual bowls, your choice.

The word for the tomato sauce is da'maa, which translates to tears, so it's meant to burn your mouth. Of course add as little or as much hot sauce to your tomato sauce as you feel comfortable.

Comments

[Tracy]

Thanks! I had found a few recipes on the internets but this is definitely the one I will make, because it sounds as close to what I had that night, and because it came from you!