Kejadara with cucumber and mint salad

Name: Kejadara with cucumber and mint salad
Cuisine: Asian, Indian
Ingredients: 4 large onions (700g), finely sliced; 1 cinnamon stick; 130ml olive oil; 3 garlic cloves, crushed; 1 tbsp tomato paste; 3 tsp madras curry powder; 1 tsp ground turmeric; 280g extra firm tofu, coarsely crumbled; 250g-280g (depending on your pack size) ready cooked basmati rice; 250g ready cooked lentils (We used Puy); 3 tbsp apple cider vinegar; 1 tsp brown sugar (any); 200g baby cucumbers, cut in 2mm rounds; 10g picked mint, roughly torn; fine sea salt and black pepper

Instructions

This dish is a love letter to three pretty related comfort foods: Indian keema rice, Middle Eastern mejadra, and Egyptian kosheri. It borrows the warming spices from keema rice, the caramelised onions and lentils from mejadra, and that sharp vinegar bite from kosheri to brighten everything up at the end. The onions take the longest (about 35 minutes of slow caramelising), so you can make them up to two days ahead if you want to get organised.

Updated at: Sat, 01 Nov 2025 08:15:41 GMT