Lentils & Bulgur (a.k.a. مجدرة "mjaddarah")

A healthy vegetarian meal that is protein rich!

Ingredients:

1 cup brown lentils

olive oil

chopped onion

1 tsp cumin, ground

salt

1 cup whole wheat bulgur

-Wash lentils. Heat a couple of tablespoons of olive oil in a saucepan, add onions, saute till golden then add the lentils, cumin and a teaspoon of salt.

-Add water, enough to cover lentils by a couple of inches. Bring to boil, place lid on pot and let boil on medium/low heat for 15 minutes. Lentils should be "almost" cooked at the end of the 15 minutes. You don't want them to be cooked all the way through because they will cook again with the bulgur. They should have a slight bite to them but not too hard either.

-Pour lentils into a strainer, save the water so you can use it again to cook the bulgur.

-Place lentils back in the saucepan, combine with bulgur. Add a teaspoon of salt. Add 2 cups of water (use same cup you used to measure both bulgur and lentils). Bring to boil, then place lid and simmer for about 20-30 minutes or until bulgur and lentils are cooked.

This dish is best enjoyed with a finely chopped salad (tomato, cucumber, lettuce, and parsley). Or with plain yogurt.

Optional: Fry some sliced onions in oil until crispy, use as topping.

(this amount will make enough for two adults and two small children)

Enjoy! :)

P.S: sometimes I like the lentils to be less in quantity than the bulgur. So I use 1 1/2 cups of bulgur instead of 1 cup. If you want to do that just make sure you double the water amount in the final cooking stage. So 1 1/2 cups of bulgur need 3 cups of water.