A comforting rice dish that won’t break the bank

By Melissa Clark, The New York Times

A bowl of lentils and rice is essential comfort food across so many cultures, be it South Asian khichdi, Middle Eastern mujadara or Greek fakorizo. No matter how traditional recipes differ, combining lentils and rice always results in a dish that’s thrifty, hearty and infinitely adaptable, inspiring as many appealing variations as there are inventive cooks.

For Nasim Alikhani, the owner of Sofreh restaurant in Brooklyn, lentils and rice means adas polo, a recipe she brought with her when she moved to New York from Isfahan, Iran, at age 23.

“It was my budget meal for those first years in the U.S.,” she said, a filling, fragrant and highly economical mix of lentils, rice and onions that she cooked for herself when she was a student and then later for her family when she was a young mother.

During Ramadan, which began Sunday, adas polo is also a staple for breaking the fast. Some years, when Alik...