Everything Great Starts With Allium: A Recipe for Caramelised Onion Dill Pilaf With Coconut Lentil Stew

Everything great starts with an allium. That is the solemn fact of cooking. And so it is true here as well – an impromptu dinner salvaged by onions and dill, in tandem with mottled slate grey lentils slowly braised in coconut milk and vegetable stock.

Both dishes are carb-heavy, but that doesn’t have to be a bad thing; carbs are nature’s blanket that adds sustenance and warmth when everything out there is cold and wet. These two dishes riff off of each other – the rice is dill-scented and sweet, the lentils are savoury and earthy, and the result is a proper home cooking for comfort.

There are a few elements to getting this dish right: one is the browning of the onions that takes time. Another is the marriage of both vegetable (or chicken) stock and quarter of a block of creamed coconut in which the lentils will simmer. The third is being generous with the dill so the rice is verdant and bright. And the fourth is cooking rice so the grains are fluffy. My inspiration here is both the Persian dill rice, or the baghali polow usually made with dill and fava beans, and my mother’s festive pulav studded with bronzed raisins.

Polow, polo, pilaf, pilau, pulao, pulav – whatever be the provenance of the rice dish, I find that it soothes any and every ill. Rice reflects the joy that is otherwise atrophied during days of storms.

Serves 4

Ingredients

1 large red onion or 2 shallots, thinly sliced
Zest of a lemon
2-3 tablespoons raisins or sultanas
2-3 tablespoons flaked almonds or broken cashews
2 cups Basmati rice, washed and soaked in water for 30 minutes
3 cups vegetable stock (for the rice)
30g fresh dill, chopped
6 tablespoons vegetable oil or ghee (for both the rice and lentils)
1 bay leaf
2 teaspoons dried thyme
2 teaspoons dried chilli flakes
2 teaspoons cumin powder
2 garlic cloves, roughly chopped
2 shallots, finely diced
1 large carrot, finely diced
A large handful of kale, washed and chopped roughly
300g puy lentils
1.5 tablespoons tomato paste
900ml vegetable stock (dissolve two stock cubes in hot water along with a small block of creamed coconut or about ¼ cup of thin coconut milk)
Salt and pepper to taste
Dill and parsley for the lentils, chopped
A sprinkle of fried onions/shallots, for garnish (optional)

Method

Both the lentils and the rice roughly take the same time to cook so I suggest making them at the same time, side by side.

Start with the lentils: In a Dutch oven over medium high heat, add 3 tablespoons oil/ghee. Once the fat is warm, add the bay leaf, the thyme, and chilli flakes and stir till the mixture is fragrant. Add the onions, garlic, carrot and the cumin powder and sauté until softened. Add a teaspoon of salt. Add the tomato paste once the onion-garlic-carrot mix is soft and stir till the paste cooks, for about 4-5 minutes. The paste will change colour to a deeper, darker red. Add a spoonful of oil if required and keep stirring. The mixture will definitely catch the bottom so deglaze with water if you wish, or adjust to a slightly lower hea to prevent burning. Add the lentils and stir so they are coated in the paste and oil. Pour in the stock and stir. Bring to a simmer on medium-high and reduce the flame to low and cook without a lid for 15 minutes until soft. Midway through, add the chopped kale and mix it in. Check to see that they don’t become soft and overcooked. Season with salt and pepper and garnish with dill and parsley.

Cook the rice: When you have poured the stock and set the lentils to cook, start on your rice. In another Dutch oven or large saucepan over a medium heat, add 2 tablespoons of ghee/oil and sauté the onions. Stir frequently in between and cook till the onions are caramelised and a deep golden brown. Once caramelised, add in the nuts and the raisins/sultanas and stir. When the nuts are beginning to colour and the raisins are plumping, add in the garlic, half the lemon zest, and some of the dill and stir. Add the remaining ghee/oil, the drained rice and stir till the small amount of residual water evaporates and the grains are coated in the fat. Pour in the stock, bring to a boil then reduce heat to low and cover with a lid till the grains are no longer translucent – you want them to be fluffy and white. Push a knife through the rice to the bottom of the pan to see if there is any water left to evaporate. Once all the liquid is gone, switch the stove off, garnish with the remaining dill and lemon zest, cover with a tea towel and place the lid tightly on top for a few minutes. Remove the lid, fluff the rice with a fork after a minute or so and serve hot, garnished with fried onions/shallots, with the lentils on the side.

Apoorva Sripathi is a writer and editor from Chennai, and the co-founder of the independent magazine CHEESE. She also writes shelf offering, a food and culture newsletter. You can find all her work at apoorvasripathi.com. Photography by Apoorva Sripathi.

You can read all of Apoorva’s recipes on Something Curated here.