Cooking a 13th-century ancestor of a modern classic from a Syrian recipe — one of two from that period, the other being by a Baghdadi author, which shows the popularity and spread of the dish.
It is made by boiling lamb (though one can only use chicken or any other meat) with rice and chickpeas shaped into large meatballs. The meat is then fried before the broth is returned to it, together with chickpeas. Then the noodles are added and when they are done, it is time to serve!
The medieval mujaddara (مجدّرة) was made with rice (or, as in this case, noodles), lentils and meat. It was also slightly more ‘soupy’ in consistency than the modern variety, which is vegetarian, while bulghur sometimes replaces rice (notably in Palestinian cuisine), and it is served with a topping of fried onion.
The word translates as ‘pock-marked’ (from جدري/judari, ‘smallpox’), in reference to the appearance of the lentils amidst the rice.

