Made this last night and cooked the onions darker than in the photo. At first it bothered me but my husband loved it (he's not big on curries so no cumin/curry/corriander). It mellowed overnight and tasted great for lunch. The recipe I used called for several Tablespoons of fresh lemon juice and plenty of pepper. The lemon juice was an excellent add.

excellent!

I have no idea how this recipe has such great reviews. I had high expectations, but there was no flavor--other than the extra spices I added, and even those didn't help tremendously. I've never eaten a middle eastern dish that didn't at least include garlic or lemon juice--and I love that cuisine. By the time I added spices, it ended up tasting like a bad creole dish. This recipe is going right in the trash.

Tasted very good, but smelled up the entire house for 2 days! Served with sour cream. Liked it enough, but the smell made me unlikely want to make it too often. Inexpensive meal.

Yum, so delicious! This is an instant classic in our house. Talk about comfort food - I'm ready for a nap. And there are plenty of leftovers too. As others suggested, I used 2 onions instead of 1, added a pinch of salt and sugar to them as they cooked, and caramelized them really well. Probably the only thing I'll do different next time is add 1 more onion.

This was my first attempt at cooking lentils. I cooked the onions about 45 minutes in Sesame Oil and added curry to the lentils, as some previous reviews suggested. I will be making this again!

I love this recipe and make it often. I double the onions, and they take about 40 minutes to fry.

Made this last night! AWESOME! Glad I read some of the reviews as I took the advice and added spices (cumin, masala, extra salt). I did cook garlic with the onions in olive oil for a long time, almost blackened them, but an absolute to achieve the nice flavor as most mentioned. As for water, I followed the directions on my lentils about 6 cups to cover the lentils. When I added the Basmati rice, added a more water to cover. I MADE A LOT! I used yogurt as well...delicious. Hubby loved it, 5yr old not so much, 3yr-NOT, and 13 month old loved it! This dish was a side to my grilled karahi masala spice blend for chicken, also, sauteed spinach in same pan as the onions and garlic with a few spices, and a cucumber tomato feta greek salad. Yes, a mixture of cultures but I love Indian, Arabic, and greek foods...all together! This dish will become a staple in our home as well. Thank goodness for the reviews! Helped a lot!

Definitely a 5 star. I first tried Mujadarrah years ago at a Turkish restaurant and never tried to make it myself at home. Now I don't need to go to a restaurant to satisfy my cravings for it. Don't hold back on the onions. You want to make sure the lentils and rice are seasoned enough. I always use vidalia onions in my cooking and they work great with this because you don't get too much onion taste and they are even sweeter.

This was tasty, albeit a bit bland. I've since made this dish again and added two chicken bouillon cubes and fried an extra onion and it was much more flavorful.

This made a great meal. I enjoyed cooking it partly for the fewer ingredients involved and the taste was just right. (I did add about a 1/4 teaspoon of cumin toward the end of the cooking time.) Plus my rice was already cooked so I just put the hot lentils on top the rice. Thanks for the recipe.

I tend to like rather plain dishes, and this was just SO bland.

We felt it was bland and needed something else, I wish we had used some of the cumin as suggested. The yogurt was better than sour cream we tried both ways.

I think this is a nice base recipe, but I needed to add a few more spices for my taste. I sauteed garlic in olive oil, then added cumin, coriander, and garam masala, then added the lentils and then adding brown rice and water. I would like to know the amount of water you're supposed to use, but I guessed and added a bit too much, so my mixture is soupy (I'm letting it cook longer as I write, hoping to cook off some of the moisture). As for the onions, I took the suggestion of other reviewers and let them cook much longer, until a deep brown. This probably took half an hour. (Tip: Add salt to draw moisture out of the onion and just a pinch of sugar to aid in the caramelization process. Yellow onions will caramelize fastest because of their higher sugar content.) I splurged on full-fat yogurt for the topping - just as bad for you as sour cream, but so lovely! Thanks for a healthy recipe, which I'm sure I'll return to.

This recipe is best JUST the way the recipe is. I too agree that there is something very good and authentic about the delicate flavors blending together (and I am usually one for heavy spices). My bean-picky hubby loved this too.

fabulous and economical, I did burn some of my onions the rest were salvagable, I used yougurt and it was awesome thank you.

Based on others' reviews, I didn't want to make this meal taste bland and therefore to review the recipe itself, I rated it with 4 stars. I went ahead and added some spices (put in when I added the rice) including 1 t of McKay's seasoning ("chicken bouillon), 1/2 t cumin and 1/2 t corriander. I also added dried garlic. I slow cooked the onion to brown (much longer than the 10 minutes the recipe calls for). I was surprised that my picky-food-eating husband absolutely loved it! That means this is a definite keeper! And guess what?! Because I am where I am, we don't always have yogurt or sour cream on-island, and the dish was tasty even with out it! Next time, I will try adding a dash of cinnamon. And yes, knowing the amount of water to use would have been helpful.

Delicious! This is Lebanese comfort food so remember not to add any spices or anything extra for the true authentic flavor. And DO carmelize the onions properly - almost black - otherwise their sweetness won't come out and the dish will be flavorless. Also, I used cold leftover basmati rice and added it at the end. Was really really good. Again, remember it's comfort food so don't look for "snazzy" and "spicy"!