REAL PEOPLE/HEARTY VEGGIE MEAL
Fritzie’s Big Pot of Love
While learning her family’s traditional recipes, Jennifer Abadi had to let Grandma be Grandma
MY GRANDMOTHER Fritzie, a painter, sculptor and jewelry maker, cooked like she made art: by feel. When I asked her to teach me the Syrian-Jewish recipes she had learned from her immigrant mother, she wouldn’t use measuring cups or spoons. It was a fistful of this, a handful (kemsheh) of that.
I was trying to document her recipes, so I wanted to measure her ingredients. She thought I was nuts. I’d ask for a measuring teaspoon; she’d pull out a regular teaspoon. I’d ask for a tablespoon; she’d pull out a soup spoon. One day, looking for a cup measure for me, she pulled out a green plastic cup that had melted a bit. I later realized it had come from a box of Tide detergent.
I ended up leaving some standard measures in her kitchen, which she teased me about. “You’re like a scientist,” she’d say. “Why are you so obsessed with the amounts?” To keep from upsetting the flow of her cooking, we made an unspoken agreement: My grandmother would plunk the amounts she wanted into measuring cups and spoons while I scribbled notes, and I never challenged the precision of her measurements.
One of the dishes she taught me to make was m’jedrah—rice and lentils. It’s a hearty and comforting meatless meal with an earthy, Middle Eastern flavor. It also happens to be good for you and great to make for a crowd, since its ingredients are inexpensive and it needs to sit for a while before serving. The taste reminds me of big family dinners in my grandmother’s Westchester home, with cousins all around.
Fritzie would cook m’jedrah in an old dented pot with handles that she had probably gotten when she married my grandfather. Who knows how many family dinners she cooked in that pot over the years, in her artistic and improvisational way. But she never wanted to replace it with a newer model. As she used to tell me, “It’s never made a bad pot yet.” —As told to Jill Grant
Jennifer Abadi, 57, a preserver of Sephardic and Judeo-Arabic culinary traditions, is the author of two cookbooks, including A Fistful of Lentils.
RECIPE
M’jedrah
(Syrian-Jewish Rice and Lentils)
SERVES 8
INGREDIENTS
2 cups dried brown or green lentils, rinsed in cold water; drained
2½ teaspoons kosher salt
2 cups long-grain white rice, soaked in cold water 10 minutes; drained
2–3 tablespoons vegetable or olive oil
2–3 cups thinly sliced yellow onions
1 In a heavy saucepan, bring 4 cups water to a boil over high heat. Add lentils and cook 10 minutes over medium-low heat, uncovered, until lentils are chewy in texture. Remove from heat.
2 Drain lentils, reserving liquid. Combine liquid with enough water to equal 3½ cups and pour back into saucepan. Add salt and drained rice; mix. Bring to a boil over high heat, uncovered.
3 Add drained lentils; stir twice gently. Boil, uncovered, until liquid is at the same level as the top of rice and lentils, about 5 minutes. Cover tightly; reduce heat to low and steam until rice is soft but not mushy, about 15 minutes. Gently fold rice upward from the bottom to create a mound. Cover and cool for 1 hour for rice to set.
4 About 45 minutes before serving, heat oil in a medium skillet over medium-high heat and sauté onions until translucent, 10 to 15 minutes. Arrange rice and lentils on a platter and sprinkle with cooked onions. If desired, spoon yogurt on each serving.
Nutrients per serving: 395 calories, 14 g protein, 70 g carbohydrates, 11 g fiber, 3.5 g fat, 99 mg cholesterol, 665 mg sodium