Lentils it is, we will have the chicken dish tomorrow.
The great thing about the lentils and rice dish is that it is very customizable (so long as you have the basic rice and lentils, of course). So if you don't want to have the sauted dates or whatever on your rice, you just don't add it. Perfect for housholds with different tastes.
The chicken is really nice too, great flavour. My dad has sent me bags and bags of dried plums which are taking up all my fridge and freezer space (I mae the mistake of saying how much i like this dish ast time I visited) so we are eating a lot of that atm.
Recipe for chicken, spinach and plums:
Not being smart here, but seriously it is exactly what it says.
Start the chicken, cooking with very little water on low heat.
Fry onions (we're big on fried onions). As they start to golden, add the spinach and a few plums. (it shouldn't be primarily plums, iyswim. They're more there for flavouring?)They shouldn't fry much, more like a gentle saute.
Add onion/spinach/plum mixture to chicken.
Let stew for an hour or so. The plums may have kind of disintegrated in the green spinach base.
Serve with plain or saffroned rice.
Make sure you don't break a tooth on a hidden floating plum stone.
You can also omit the spinach, and instead used tomato paste with the dried plums, in which case it would be known as "chicken-and-plums". :)