MUJADDARAH (2)
(adapted from George Lassalle’sEast of Orphanides )
[serves 4]
1 cup whole (brown) lentils, picked over and rinsed
cup olive oil
2 large onions, sliced thin
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 cup long-grain rice, picked over and rinsed
1¼ teaspoons salt
black pepper to taste
Put the lentils in a pan with 2 cups of water. Bring to a simmer and cook for 15 minutes, or until the lentils are almost cooked. Prepare crispy onion shreds as directed on pages 312–13, but remove only half of the browned onions from the pan. Add the cumin and ½ cup of water to the onions in the pan and stir until the water is absorbed. Return to the heat and stir in another ½ cup of water. Let this simmer until it is almost absorbed and add a final ½ cup of water. The onions should now be more or less reduced to a sauce. Add to this any remaining cooking liquid from the lentils and sufficient water to make 2½ cups. Stir in the rice, lentils, and salt and pepper. Bring to a boil on a high flame, then reduce heat and simmer uncovered until the liquid is absorbed. When only a few bubbles remain on the surface, cover tightly and allow to steam over a very low flame for another 15 minutes. Serve with the remaining crispy onion shreds scattered on top.
Then out into the [streets of Cairo] again for a final nibble,kushari. The dish is a mélange of spaghetti, rice, and lentils; as the chef spoons it into the bowl he sprinkles flakes of fried onion on top and adds a bit of hot tomato sauce. The counters of akushari stand bear bottles containing two kinds of sauce, one of vinegar with cloves of garlic floating in it, the other based on hot red peppers. Either sauce turns a bland dish into a fiery treat.
— Harry G. Nickles,Middle Eastern Cooking
Ifkhichri ’s appearance in the kitchens of Baghdad seems strange, its recent emergence as the Egyptian street foodkushari strains credulity entirely. But there it is, being sold from brightly painted baby-blue and cotton-candy-pink pushcarts and tiny, hole-in-the-wall eateries. No one is sure how or why this happened—only that it has. Claudia Roden told us that when she left Cairo in 1952 she had never encountered kushari; when she returned thirty years later she found it everywhere. Here is her description of thesekushari sellers at work.
Vendors put a plate ofkushari together on demand—taking a ladleful from each of three different pans: one of short tubular macaroni (not spaghetti), another of rice, yet another of lentils. They do that at full speed, in seconds, the proportions depending on the relative cost of ingredients at the time and “la tête du client.” As far as I know there is always pasta; otherwise it becomes mujaddarah (ormega-dara in the local dialect). Pasta is cheap, while lentils have become expensive because many have left the land to work in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, or Libya.
Apart from macaroni, what distinguisheskushari from bothmujadarrah andkhichri is that the basic ingredients are all already cooked. And this isn’t the case only at the fast-food carts. Here is a home recipe forkushari, adapted from Samia Abdennour’sEgyptian Cooking.
KUSHARI
[serves 4]
1 cup brown lentils, picked over and rinsed
1 cup rice, picked over and rinsed
4 ounces short tubular macaroni
2 large onions, sliced fine
¼ cup olive oil
2 cups tomato sauce
ground hot red pepper
Separately cook the lentils, rice, and macaroni. Prepare crispy onion shreds as directed on pages 312–13. As soon as they are removed from the pan, add the lentils, rice, and macaroni to the hot skillet with the remaining oil and cook for 7 to 10 minutes, stirring often to prevent their sticking. Then serve, topping each plate with some of the crispy onion shreds, a share of the tomato sauce, and a sprinkle of hot red pepper.
This dish, with its multiplicity of precooked starches, its multinational blend of ingredients, its mimicry of anidea of a dish with less regard to authenticity than to cost-saving, and, especially, the ease with which it can be portioned out, has the feel of the steam table to it, and, even more specifically, the army mess line. All of our informants generally agree thatkhichri evolved intokushari thanks to the British presence in Egypt—the dish possibly picked up by local cooks hired to work in the mess hall of some Indian regiment stationed in Cairo during World War II.
The important thing to notice, though, is how quickly this Creole cousin ofkhichri found a place in the hearts of the Egyptians who mob the lunch carts for it every day. The word has also worked its way into the Egyptian language as an affectionate synonym for “jumble” or “mess.” As Charles Perry explained to us:
Hashîsh kushariis a mixture of powdered hashish and tobacco (to judge from the composition of the rice and lentil dish, probably longer on tobacco than hashish).Shây kushari is tea made in a glass by adding water to leaves, rather than steeping it in a pot and straining out the leaves.
Of course, this was not the first timekhichri had become the camp follower of an invading army, only to soon find itself dressed in foreign clothing, speaking a foreign language, and answering to what a foreign mouth believed to be its native name.
3
Kedgeree (khichri) of the English type is composed of boiled rice, chopped hard-boiled egg, cold minced fish, and a lump of fresh butter: these are all tossed together in thesauté -pan, flavoured with pepper, salt, and any minced garden herb such as cress, parsley, or marjoram, and served in a hot dish.
The Indiankhichri of fish is made like the foregoing with the addition of just enough turmeric powder to turn the rice a pale yellow colour, and instead of garden herbs the garnish is composed of thinjulienne -like strips of chilli, thin slices of green ginger, crisply fried onions, etc.
— Col. A. R. Kenney-Herbert,
Wyvern’s Indian Cookery Book(1869)
Natives of India tend to roll their eyes when the wordkedgeree is mentioned, seeing it as yet another Western misreading of their cuisine. Let one native commentator, Julie Sahni inClassic Indian Cooking, speak for all (emphasis mine):
The boiled rice-and-fish preparation known as “kedgeree” isnot an Indian dish, for a properkhichrimust containdal and doesnot contain fish. Kedgeree, very popular in British countries, was originally concocted by the British stationed in India to suit the Western palate.
Sinceeveryone says this, it must be true. Still, Col. A. R. Kenney Herbert was a keen observer of Indians and their kitchens, curious about and appreciative of their food, and he was there in the 1860s and Julie Sahni and company were not. The second paragraph quoted above—excised by Kenney-Herbert when he revised and expandedWyvern’s Indian Cookery Book into the better-knownCulinary Jottings for Madras (first published in 1879)—requires, it seems to me, a slightly more complicated reading of the situation. It is, after all, apart from the fish, a dead-on description ofkhichri, with no sense at all of any adaptation “to suit the Western palate.” The fact that the recipe was pruned from the later book reinforces this interpretation, since, to make room for other recipes, Kenney-Herbert trimmed matter he felt would not interest English cooks.
Perhaps because my initial encounter withkhichri was in that exchange between Bruce Chatwin and Indira Gandhi, I find it hard to believe that a dish with the name of “mess” has its list of ingredients set for all time. Certainly, pilafs made with fish are not unknown in India—see the recipe forpilau matabak inThe Varied Kitchens of India. And remember the Parsi predilection for using eggs in their cooking. Dishes likekhichri, before they suffer hardening of the arteries, adapt themselves to situations as they find them. Since bits of fish do the same thing that legumes do—provide nutritional balance and textural contrast—it’s not impossible to imagine the one leading the way to the other.
Imagine a native of Bombay visiting New England sometime in the last century and sampling a Yankee vegetable hash. On returning home she prepares the dish with the addition ofgaram masala and chopped coriander leaf. This hash is embraced as a novel v
egetarian dish and endures well into this century, when an American food writer casts doubt on its purported lineage, since American hash isalways made with meat and never with spices.
A dish like kedgeree often ends up far more a reflection of the culture that adopts it than the one that gave it birth, because—as was the case with chili con carne or spaghetti and meatballs—it is adopted only because it gives an exotic twist to something already familiar. The recipe that Kenney-Herbert gives directly above kedgeree inCulinary Jottings for Madras is one for a simple dish of leftover fish mixed into mashed potato:
“Twice-laid,” as this dish is called at Home, cannot be sent up better than … streaked with a fork outside, and baked till it takes on a pale brown tint. Chopped hard-boiled egg may be stirred into the fish and potatoes with advantage.
Substitute rice for the potato, and the route to kedgeree is all but inked onto the map.
Certainly, kedgeree, whatever its Anglo-Indian pedigree, was welcomed in England because it was at once novel, savory, digestible, inexpensive to make, and easy to keep hot under a chafing dish—and thus ideally constituted to take its place among the constellation of favored dishes that make up that great institution the British breakfast.
“Wyvern” himself published a book devoted to this subject—Fifty Breakfasts—but perhaps its greatest theorizer was another anonymous, retired military man, Major L, whoseBreakfasts, Luncheons, and Ball Suppers (1887) offers an elaborate treatise on the subject, with menus for different seasons, occasions, and lifestyles. One of his menus sets out the following (not counting the cold meats on the side table or the various breads and cakes): “Kedgeree of Cod, Devilled Pheasant à la Perry, Broiled Ham, Mutton Chops, Eggsaux Fines Herbes …”
Sixty years later, when Dylan Thomas was commissioned to write the libretto to a (never made) film operetta,Me and My Bike, he opened it with Sir Gregory Grig, “fiercely moustached, ensanguined, vintage-portly, with poached eyes and mulberry nose,” coming down to just such a morning repast:
Sir Gregory goes to the sideboard, raises, one after the other, the covers of the huge silver dishes, commenting as he does so, in a rich North Country voice: “York ham. Cold pheasant. Game pie. Lamb chops. Devilled kidneys. Curried eggs. Kedgeree.” He shakes his head. “Pot luck again!” He rakes a generous helping of each onto his great silver plate and goes down the sideboard to an array of bottles.
Although fewer Englishmen today have the opportunity to exercise it, the taste for such breakfasting remains—or, at least, the complaint does that things are not as they were and still ought to be. Here, for instance, is Nicolas Freeling speaking out of his 1972 charmer,The Cook Book:
Even the Ritz is apt to offer you the small pallid parsley omelette. Whereas I want fish-cakes, and mutton chop, and kedgeree, and kidneys.
A possible solution to this problem of time and appetite for breakfast is offered by Clement Freud inBelow the Belt, another curmudgeonly masculine Brit culinary epic. He suggests that the best meal of the day—breakfast—be moved to the best time of the day to enjoy it—late evening, using among other arguments the fact that a decent kedgeree takes “an hour to make, which is absolutely all right for an evening meal.” (The particular kedgeree he had in mind was made of leftover roast pheasant.) This points the way for us lesser mortals, for whom one of these “light” dishes can provide a very filling supper.
The classic kedgeree is made exactly as Kenney-Herbert describes, except that smoked fish is now generally preferred to plain. Indeed, Eliza Acton had already remarked inModern Cookery for Modest Families (1845) that “the best of all ‘Kidgerees’ to my mind is made with smoked haddock.” However, as the dish’s popularity spread, some cooks felt that if itwere truly an Indian dish, it ought to have “Indian” ingredients. So, in went curry powder and sultanas, and the result was sent to the table with the chutney bottle. Our own feeling is that if akhichri -type kedgeree is wanted, the cook should follow the line laid out by Kenney-Herbert, seasoning it with turmeric, fresh ginger, and hot green chile, and serving it topped with crispy onion shreds.
Those who feel otherwise have Elizabeth David on their side, which should be solace enough. However, Jane Grigson, who writes of kedgeree with genuine enthusiasm in several of her books, while starting out in the curry powder, sultana, and chutney party (see, for instance, her 1973 recipe inFish Cookery ), switched her allegiance by the time she wroteThe Observer Guide to British Cookery (1984). The recipe she offers there “came from someone who had spent years in India and retired to Cheltenham. The only spice is mace; indeed, the whole thing is simple and fresh.” We have adapted it as follows.
KEDGEREE
[serves 4]
8 ounces (about 1½ cups) long-grain rice, cleaned and rinsed
2 blades of mace or a pinch of nutmeg
8 ounces smoked haddock fillet
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 hard-cooked eggs, peeled and chopped
salt and pepper to taste
½ cup all-purpose (whipping) cream
sprig or two of fresh parsley, minced
Cook the rice in your usual way with the two blades of mace (if using nutmeg, add this later, when the cream is stirred in). Cover the smoked haddock with water and gently poach, turning once, until the fish begins to flake. Remove from the poaching liquid and break apart with a fork. Melt 1 tablespoon of the butter in a large skillet and add the fish, stirring gently for a few minutes. Mix in the rice—discarding the mace—and, when the mixture is hot, the hard-cooked eggs. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Remove from the heat and quickly stir in the cream, the minced parsley, and the rest of the butter. Turn into a heated serving dish and serve at once.
Cook’s Note.Those who find this dish a little rich might moisten the mixture partly with cream and partly with some of the fish-poaching liquid.
SMOKED SALMON KEDGEREE
[serves 4]
Smoked haddock is often marketed in the United States as “finnan haddie,” whether it is the authentic Scottish article or not. If the product is a strange fluorescent yellow, it is artificially smoked and should be approached with caution. Englishmen under duress have used smoked herring instead (in this instance, perhaps a little curry powder is advised). We ourselves tried a small amount of smoked salmon and were led by a chain of association—salmon … eggs … cream … baby peas—to the following very pleasing results.
8 ounces (about 1½ cups) long-grain rice, cleaned and rinsed
8 ounces frozen baby peas
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon ground hot red pepper
1 onion, chopped
sprig or two of fresh parsley, minced
2 hard-cooked eggs, peeled and chopped
4 ounces smoked salmon, cut into small strips
salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
½ cup all-purpose (whipping) cream
Cook the rice as you usually do. Meanwhile, simmer the frozen baby peas in ½ cup water for 5 minutes and remove from the heat. Melt the butter in a large skillet. Sprinkle in the salt and hot red pepper, add the onion, and sauté until translucent, stirring in the minced parsley toward the end of the cooking time.
When the rice is done, add the peas and their cooking liquid to the onions, and stir well. Turn in the cooked rice, the chopped hard-cooked egg, and the strips of smoked salmon, stirring to distribute the ingredients evenly throughout the rice. Taste for seasoning, adding salt as necessary and plenty of black pepper. Moisten well with the cream, and turn into a heated serving bowl. Serve at once.
Cook’s Note.A piece of fresh salmon may be substituted for the smoked. Poach it just until done, flake it with a fork, and proceed as above, using some of the poaching liquid instead of that from the peas to moisten the dish, adding to this a squeeze of lemon.
Whereverkhichri has wandered, it has always managed to offer its eaters the solace of essential sustenance—however peculiar tha
t may seem to the noninitiate. In a piece that appeared in his “Waiting for Dessert” column inThe Village Voice, Vladimir Estragon (Geoffrey Stokes) wrote about a time when his wife—aka “The Woman Warrior”—was ordered by her doctor to spend a few days in bed. Estragon considered himself the ideal nurse—“I make custards, read aloud, disappear if asked, stuff like that”—but was nearly confounded when she asked him to prepare her favorite comfort food.
What is to be done when one’s n&d, sad-eyed as a bloodhound, requestskhichri? One is to cook it, and that’s that. It did, however, seem an odd choice for acomforting food. Spiced rice garnished with hard-boiled eggs and fried onions is, let’s face it, a long way from tea and toast.
The Woman Warrior knew differently. Now we do, too.
Author’s Note
I would especially like to thank Claudia Roden, Charles Perry, and Copeland Marks for kindly taking the time to write me informative letters in response to my queries regardingkhichri. Thanks are also due to Alan Davidson, Barbara Wheaton, and Barbara Haber, for their prompt and generous assistance in providing me with information vital to completing this essay. Readers interested in pursuing more elaborate versions ofkhichri should start with Yamuna Devi’sLord Krishna’s Cuisine: The Art of Vegetarian Cooking, which contains several of them.
CAPONATA SICILIANA
Caponata came into my life in a rather offhand way. About ten years ago, I was chatting with a friend over the telephone about our different cooking adventures, and he mentioned that he had come up with a secret ingredient that vastly improved his standard pasta sauce—he stirred in an entire can of Progresso eggplant appetizer, acondimento also known—I was to discover—as caponata.
I had never noticed these cans before—small wonder, since they’re even tinier than cans of tomato paste—but they were right there at the Stop & Shop. I bought a couple and took them home. However, since I didn’t make tomato-based pasta sauces except to feed company, and then only when I was broke, those two cans sat on the kitchen shelf for a long time. Finally, one night, hungry and with not much in the house to eat, I glanced over the list of ingredients—eggplant, onion, celery, olives, and so on—and decided that a can of the stuff all by itself might do just fine stirred into a plate of spaghetti. After that, until I moved to Maine, where they proved not much in evidence, a succession of those little cans regularly moved through my kitchen.
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