Recipe from Nasim Alikhani
Adapted by Melissa Clark
Updated March 11, 2024
- Total Time
- 45 minutes
- Prep Time
- 10 minutes
- Cook Time
- 35 minutes
- Rating
- 4(742)
- Notes
- Read community notes
Lentils and rice scented with warm spices and strewn with fried onions is a classic Persian dish with infinite variations. This minimalist take, from Nasim Alikhani, the owner of Sofreh restaurant in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, keeps things quick and simple, and uses just a few pantry-friendly ingredients. The lentils and rice are cooked together in the same pot, then layered with a mixture of caramelized onions and plump, sweet dates, as well as chopped fresh herbs for brightness. A dollop of yogurt on top adds a tart and creamy touch. Feel free to riff on this basic recipe, adding nuts for crunch, stirring in other spices like cardamom, ginger and saffron, and substituting the likes of raisins, dried apricots or dried cranberries for the dates. At Sofreh, the dish is finished with a dash of rosewater and melted butter for extra richness and perfume. —Melissa Clark
Featured in: A Comforting Rice Dish That Won’t Break the Bank
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Ingredients
Yield:6 to 8 servings
- 1cup green lentils, rinsed
- 2tablespoons ground cinnamon
- ½teaspoon ground turmeric
- 2tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon kosher salt (such as Diamond Crystal), more as needed
- 2½cups basmati rice, rinsed and drained
- 1cup chopped fresh herbs, such as cilantro, dill, mint or a combination
- 1cup plain whole-milk yogurt, for serving (optional)
- 6tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil or clarified butter, plus more for serving (see Tip)
- 2yellow onions, finely diced
- 12fresh Medjool dates, pitted and diced
For the Rice
For the Onion-date Mixture
Ingredient Substitution Guide
Nutritional analysis per serving (8 servings)
526 calories; 12 grams fat; 2 grams saturated fat; 0 grams trans fat; 8 grams monounsaturated fat; 1 gram polyunsaturated fat; 95 grams carbohydrates; 8 grams dietary fiber; 27 grams sugars; 13 grams protein; 473 milligrams sodium
Note: The information shown is Edamam’s estimate based on available ingredients and preparation. It should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice.
Powered byPreparation
Step
1
Bring 4 cups water to boil in a medium saucepan over high heat. Add the lentils, cinnamon, turmeric and 2 tablespoons salt. Stir well to combine, breaking up any clumps. Cover and reduce heat to medium. Simmer until the lentils are cooked but still have a bite, 7 to 10 minutes. Drain lentils and set aside.
Step
2
Using the same medium saucepan, bring 2 cups water to a boil. Add the rice, cooked lentils, 1 teaspoon salt and enough hot water to cover the rice by 1 inch. Cook, uncovered, until all the water is absorbed, 10 to 14 minutes.
Step
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Reduce heat to low, wrap the pot lid in a clean kitchen towel, cover the pan and let the rice steam for 10 minutes. Fluff rice with a fork; taste and add salt if needed.
Step
4
While the rice is cooking, prepare the onion-date mixture: In a skillet, heat 4 tablespoons oil or clarified butter until hot but not smoking. Add onions and a pinch of salt, and cook until the onions are dark golden and a little crispy, 9 to 14 minutes. Transfer onions to a bowl and return the skillet to the heat.
Step
5
Add remaining 2 tablespoons oil to the skillet and, once hot, add the dates and warm them through, 1 to 2 minutes. Stir dates into the bowl with the onions.
Step
6
To serve, spoon a layer of rice and lentils into a warmed serving bowl, then add a layer of onion-date mixture and sprinkle with chopped herbs. Keep alternating layers, ending with the onion-date mixture and a final sprinkling of herbs. Drizzle with more oil and top with a dollop of yogurt if you like.
Tip
- If you don't have clarified butter but would like a buttery flavor, you can use 2 tablespoons unsalted butter to warm the dates, and then top the dish with more melted butter. Be sure to use olive oil (or clarified butter) for the onions or they might burn.
Ratings
4
out of 5
742
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Cooking Notes
Maryam
We discard the water from the lentils because it darkens the rice and starch from the legume makes the basmati rice turn into mush. We can add a mixture of equal ratios pinch of clove + cardamom + cinnamon on top of the rice while it cooks by steaming. Also, in my mother’s traditional Persian cooking, we didn’t use tumeric but rather saffron for its aroma is more pleasant and color is much red/orange. The difference between tumeric and saffron is quite noticeable.
Jane Cutter
Curious as to why one throws away the water used to boil the lentils which has the spices in it. Can't imagine much spice flavor then gets into the rice. In making Palestinian mjedra you add the rice to the water with the lentils in it and then cook them together, adding additional water if needed.
Joanne Weaver
Not a note but a question. When...and why...are recipes now calling for Kosher salt instead of the more readily available and inexpensive table salt? The salt home cooks managed to successfully cook with for years.
Sally
Wow, two tablespoons of salt and two tablespoons of cinnamon? I made this and used no where near those amounts. I also cooked the lentils and rice TOGETHER. Easier and no problems with the result. Very tasty dish that I will make again.
Bougeotte
Out here in the country, where there's no DoorDash, we do SlapDash. So, as usual, I'm going to tweak this to my supply: leftover brown basmati rice, canned lentils, the stemmy remainders of bunches of cilantro and parsley, plus all the spices. Oddly, I do have ghee and about six medjool dates...
J. Beem-Miller
NYT does this primarily to avoid issues with differences in density among salt brands. This can have serious consequences when measuring salt amounts by volume (I know from experience). Here's a link to a Melissa Clark article about it: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/02/dining/salt.html
RL
You're wrapping the *lid* (not the pan itself). Putting a thinnish layer of towel between the lid and the rice/lentils in the pot blocks off the moisture from the lid, keeping it from dripping into the mixture (& resulting in soggy/gloppy sadness). I do this towel/lid trick for many grains (like quinoa) in the final low heat "steam" stage - it makes a big difference.
CJ
Followed recipe as is except added cardamom, saffron, and a dash of to both lentil cooking water AND a dash of cardamom, clove and nutmeg and a few strands of saffron to rice water. Also added a few apricots and barberries to dates, and an extra shallot to onions. Topped with toasted pistachios and almond slices. Used dill, mint and cilantro. Result was outstanding and a big hit with guests.
JS
Kosher salt is easier to hold/sprinkle into recipes. You can use table salt, but halve the amount.
Drake Baer
This is my favorite type of NYT recipe, with hints for varying the recipe substantially. As ever, I look forward to reading reader comments on successful riffs I wouldn’t have thought of.
LGS
I recommend an alternative recipe in "New Food for Life" - you par-boil the rice as you always do in making this kind of Persian rice, but then, after adding a mixture of yogurt/oil at the bottom of the pot, you combine all the ingredients in the pot, layering them with the rice, cover with towel and lid and steam for about 1 hour - fantastic - I serve this at parties all the time and it disappears.
Erie
Really great recipe! The spice was just right, if you make it as written it'll turn out very well!
senator john b. blutarsky
re: kosher salt question. kosher salt does not contain iodine so it has a bit of a different taste profile. and since it is larger grained than conventional table salt, a larger amount by volume is needed for the equivalent amount of sodium chloride that is in table salt. p.s. kosher salt and table salt typically cost about the same, and both are quite inexpensive unless you are buying a "gourmet" product.
Nick
FYI:The recipe calls for Diamond Crystal Kosher Salt, 2 TBS of which is the equivalent of 1 TBS of table salt.
AB
The lentils are drained in the first step, so I suppose a lot of the salt is discarded.
Nancy
I agree with Kelly about the rice. It kept sticking to the bottom of the pan so I also had to keep adding water which resulted in mushy rice. Otherwise, the flavoring and the layering technique for serving was spot on. Also agree that it was way too much rice and would recommend half the amount unless you’re cooking for an army. If you are, then I think I would double or triple the onion and date mix for optimal layering ratio.
Jennifer P
This recipe has potential but the instructions were not very good. It really seems like a waste to throw away 2+ tablespoons of cinnamon when draining the lentils after just 7 minutes of cooking. Why not specify the volume of water to be added to the rice rather than "enough to cover by 1 inch"? The pan diameter would have a drastic effect on the amount of water needed. Wrapping the pot lid with a clean kitchen towel (?) while continuing to heat the rice seems like a fire hazard.
Jen
Love this recipe! To round it out as a vegetarian main, we love adding the cauliflower (and even the halloumi) from NYT Cooking’s “Roasted Cauliflower Salad with Halloumi and Lemon” by Alexa Weibel. Other great additions include roasted red pepper and avocado.
Kansas City Cook
Winner! Made for a community iftar pot luck dinner for Muslims and non-Muslims. Compliment from a Muslim man: "YOU made that?! It was really good. I thought some Turkish lady brought it!" Thank you NYT Cooking. Watch the dates, they burn easily. I scooped most of them out and the flavor was even better. Can do ahead by leaving the green herbs off the top layer until the last minute. Recommend the 50:50 rice to lentils as suggested by another cook. 1 recipe = 15 to 20 generous servings.
Michael
definitely should have used saffron; I'd seriously consider cardamon. Next time I would consider adding chopped dried apricots as well. I might consider cooking the rice separately and then adding the lentils after it is cooked. Unfortunately, this initial round my rice didn't turned out fluffy.
Kansas City Cook
I added liquid saffron (Arabic market) and cardamom. Nice depth. Draining the lentils helps, as mine got gelatinous from the cinnamon. Will cook lentils this way again because the flavor was so appealing. As another cook said, too much cooking water from the lentils also darkens the rice without adding flavor. Worked pretty well to Kput lentils through a strainer, though it adds another step. Washed the rice before cooking until the water was hardly cloudy. Took 5-6 rinses. Was nicely fluffy.
Harold S
The rice & lentils cooked perfectly. The flavors were good, but we will increase the amount of onion/ date mixture next time. Added chopped pistachios on top just because!
TJ
If presentation doesn't matter and you're tempted to just stir in the onions/dates and the herbs: don't. It's difficult to mix them in evenly and the process ends up squashing the nicely fluffy rice and lentils. I'll layer them next time, and also double the herbs.I used parboiled brown rice (the NYT Bittman instructions) to make the timing work.
Ginger
I made this with Brown Basmati Rice, so cooked the rice in 4.5 cups of broth for 35 minutes, then added the lentils for another 30 minutes of cooking until the broth was gone. turned out lovely.
MrsChill
Oh this was so good! I loved the technique for cooking the rice/lentils, and at first I thought I messed it up, but also checked out the cookbook from the library and the author mentions how this technique makes the rice a bit more sticky. I can’t get enough of the date-onion mixture, and it all tastes even better the next day. I used all 3 of the herbs mentioned and loved the layers of flavor there. Just be forewarned: it makes a TON. Which I am not mad about.
mo
Made as instructed with a couple exceptions:-halved the amount of salt and spices during lentil stage -added bits of butter on top during the steam stage as requested by my Persian hubby-doubled the amount of herbs bc we just love fresh herbsDelicious! Will be part of the regular rotation.
Joseph O'Sullivan
This was an easy and tasty recipe. As others have noted, it makes a lot of food. I’ll be eating leftovers for many, many days. lol. I followed the recipe with one modification, I switched dried cherries for the dates. For savory dishes I find dates and raisins a bit too sweet, so I replace them with dried cherries for the milder sweetness.
cali L
Holy smokes this is delicious. Even my picky kid had 3rds. It was way better than I expected it to be. I decreased the rice to 1.5 cups but otherwise made it as written. I used fresh dill and cilantro for the herbs, and lots of them. When doing the onions and dates, I did not heat the dates separately from the onions, because why?? I just added them to the pan with the onions toward the end. I did use a mix of dates and apricots. Man it’s good. I’m having leftovers for breakfast today
Obbadda
Fabulous!!!I can't eat rice because it makes my blood glucose skyrocket. I opted to try w/ quinoa (1½c) and intuited that I would want a higher ratio of lentils (1heaping c of beluga.)I cooked the quinoa for 15m, then lentils for 15m- exactly spiced as directed- drained, added together coverefld. Prepped the onion/date mix w/ only 1lg med yellow onion, and only 9 dates because I was afraid it would be too much. I agree with others to double it! Made for a retreat this wkend-hope it reheats!
Lisa
Used dried dates because I don't think I've ever seen a fresh date in the market in my life, and substituted saffron for tumeric, otherwise followed recipe. It was good. Next time I would like to serve with something lemony/astringent or spicy hot. Any suggestions?
Sharnie
We served this with feta stuffed lamb meatballs and a lemon Greek yoghurt. It's very delicious. Next time I think I would like to add something like pepitas to add a crunch element to the rice. I have a nut allergy so pepitas are kind of my answer to everything, but I'm sure there's an acceptable nut that would provide that crunch and pair well with the sweetness also.
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