Curd Rice

Every south Indian lunch and dinner ends with curd rice. Curd rice is just mixing butter milk or curds/yogurts to the cooked rice. But adding a little seasoning to it makes it more tasty and special. Curd rice and pickle is the best combo one can have on a hot summer afternoon lunch. It makes a good picnic lunch too. I am sending this curd rice to Fun 'n' Sun event hosted by Simple Indian Food.

Ingredients:

Cooked rice - 1 cup

Butter milk or Yogurt/Curds - 1 cup

Milk - half cup

salt - as required

Curry leaves

Asafoetida powder - 2 pinches

for seasoning:

Oil - 1 teaspoon

Mustard seeds - half teaspoon

Urud Dal - half teaspoon

Green chillis - 2 - slit vertically

Method:

Add the salt to the cooked rice and mash the rice really well.

Heat oil and add the mustard seeds, when it pops, add the urud dal and green chilli. When the dal turns golden brown add the seasoning to the rice.

Add curry leaves and asafoetida powder to the rice and mix really well.

Add milk and stir well.

Now add the butter milk or curds or yogurt and mix well.

Serve with pickle of your choice.

I have listed below, the many ways of preparing curd rice.

1. Simple Curd rice: Just mix butter milk to the cooked rice.

2. Curd rice with green chilli seasoning. (The method that I have described above)

3. Bagalabhath: Mix a tablespoon of butter to the steaming hot white rice. Mix it until the butter melts completely. Add salt and mix well. Then, add a cup of milk and mix well. Then, half cup thick curds and mix well. This is a simple way of preparing delicious bagalabhath. Curry leaves can be added to this rice.

3. Curd rice with fruits: To the curd rice mentioned in '1' or '2', mix in finely diced apples, pomogranate seeds (washed), seed less small green grapes.

4. Curd rice with Vegetables: To the curd rice mentioned in '1' or '2', mix in grated carrot and grated or finely diced cucumber. Add finely chopped coriander leaves.

5. Mor Molaga Thair sadam: To the curd rice mentioned in '1' or '2', mix in deep fried curshed mor molaga

6. Special Curd Rice: Cook one cup rice with milk (if using 3 cups of water for making regular rice, add 2 cups water and 1 cup milk). Then, do the seasoning mentioned in the above recipe. Mix in half a cup curd and leave it aside for 4 hrs and serve.

7. Other varieites: roasted broken cashews can be added to any variety of curd rice listed above. You can come up with more creative ways of preparing curd rice.

Enjoy the delicious curd rice. Keep cool this summer.

Lapsi - broken wheat sweet porridge

I had lapsi, a delicious north Indian sweet, in a potluck party in my friend's house a few weeks back. The sweet was so tasty that I wanted to try. As I was browsing for the recipe, I learnt that this sweet is prepared in Gujarat, Maharashtra and Rajasthan. In south India we use rice to prepare sweet pongal. The same is called lapsi in north India where they use cracked wheat instead of rice. I found only this difference. Of course rice is the staple food of the south and wheat for north.

Coming to the recipe, after I saw several links for the recipe, I got an idea that the cracked wheat is first cooked in milk or water and then sugar, cardamom and ghee are added to the cooked wheat to make a sweet porridge. I just loved cooking lapsi today. I am excited that it turned out really well. I added nutmeg powder and cardamom powder. The sweet is just yummy and addictive too. I am sending this sweet to RCI - Rajasthan hosted by Padmaja of Spicyandra.

Ingredients:

Cracked wheat - 1 cup

Water - 1 cup

Lowfat milk - 2 cups

Sugar - 1 cup

Ghee (clarified butter) - 2 tablespoons

Cardamom powder - half teaspoon

Nutmeg powder - half teaspoon

Sliced almonds for garnishing

Method:

Heat a heavy bottomed kadai and add half tablespoon ghee. When ghee melts, add the cracked wheat and roast until the content heats up and good aroma comes. Transfer it to another container.

Heat milk and water in the heavy bottomed kadai and when the content heats up, add the roasted cracked wheat.

Allow it to cook partially closed. Stir occasionally. Cook until the wheat is tender. If all the moisture is absorbed and still the wheat is not cooked, pour half a cup water and allow it to cook until the wheat is tender.

When the wheat is fully cooked, add the sugar and cardamom. The content will loosen and again start thickening. When most of the moisture is absorbed, add the remaining ghee. Stir well until even distribution. Let the porridge be a little loose as the sweet tends to thicken after some time.

Stir in the nutmeg powder and garnish with almonds. Delicious lapsi is ready.

Karela Pulao with Bengali style Raita

Karela Pulao:

Before trying the pulao with bitter gourd, I was wondering how in the world its going to taste. I have made only pickles and pakoras with bitter gourd. This is the first time I tried a pulao with this vegetable. I tried Indira's Karela Pulao and we loved it. The taste was just perfect - bitter, sweeter and spicy. It was just a one pot meal. All I did was to add the cooked basmati rice in the prepared bittergourd.

Bengali style Raita:

I wanted to prepare a nice raita for this. Today Ramki of One page cookbooks posted traditional bengali curries and I wanted to try his bengali style raita recipe from his one page bengali curries. The raita went along very well with the karala pulao. Thanks to Indira and Ramki for sharing such delicious recipes.

Recipe for Raita:

To one cup yogurt, mixed red chilli powder, salt and cumin powder.

For the seasoning, heat half a teaspoon oil and add the cumin seeds and kalonji. Add this to the yogurt. Mix well.

My entries to vairous events:


Karela pulao goes to Vegetable of the week - bitter gourd/karela event hosted by Pooja.

Bengali style raita goes to RCI - Bengal hosted by Sandeepa.

Again, Karela pulao goes to One pot wonders hosted by Pavani.

Click here to see my entry to Click event hosted by Jugalbandi.

I am delighted to participate in all the above events. Thanks to all the hosts.

Plain Dosa / Saadha dosai

I used to use the iddli batter for making Dosa, until my friend Shalini shared a wonderful plain dosa recipe with me. Here is the recipe.

Ingredients:

Par boiled rice - 1 cup

Raw rice - quarter cup

Urud dal - one hand full

Fenugreek seeds - half teaspoon

Salt - 1 teaspoon

Oil - to use while preparing dosa

Method:

Combine par boiled rice, raw rice, urud dal and fenugreek seeds. Wash well and soak in water for atleast 4 to 5 hours. I soaked it overnight.

Grind it in a wet grinder using little water until the batter is fine.

Tranfer the content to a container. Add required amount of salt and mix well using your hands.

Allow it to ferment for atleast 20 hours partially closed.

Now the batter is ready to prepare dosa.

Refrigerate the remaining batter in an airtight container.

For preparing dosa:

Heat a tawa and take a ladle of batter.

Pour the batter in the center of the tawa and spread it from inside out.

Dribble little oil around the corners.

After a minute, flip the dosa and remove from heat after half a minute.

Serve immediately with sambar/chutney/milagai Podi or any kind of masal for Dosa.

Picture: I have displayed the dosas with MTR chutney powder that is mixed with little oil.

Use ghee instead of oil for a great flavor and aroma.

This is my entry to the Dosa Mela hosted by Srivalli of Cooking for all seasons.