Dal Bhat w Rice

Today we are travelling to our neighboring country - Nepal to relish their National food - Dal Bhat with Rice.. When I was searching for the combos this was one of the first ones I had selected but could do it only yesterday!!! I made this for lunch and it was a very comforting and satisfying meal.. The best part is that you felt like eating home food but it is an International one!!! Serve this hot with steaming hot rice!!

Methi Pulao–Rice Recipes

Do you like Methi??? I actually love it.. There are so many dishes that can be made with this in both leaves form and seeds form.. They are so healthy, but not many appreciate it due to its slightly bitter taste... We add methi seeds (fenugreek seeds) to a lot of our daily dishes mainly sambar.. This pulao is made with the greens and is quite easy to make.. The flavor of the leaves are beyond words... I am not adding the whole garam masala spices here as I love the flavor of methi, but you may add if you prefer..

Nellikkai Saadam / Amla Rice

Do you know the speciality of Nellikkai (Amla)??? It is the only (at least that I know) that has 5 tastes out of the 6.. Meaning there is arusuvai (6 taste) types of taste that food can be seperated and Nellikkai has 5 in it.. The arusuvai (6 types of taste) are - Pulippu (sour), Thuvarpu (astringent), Kaarppu (pungent), Uppu (salt) , Inipu (sweet) and Kasappu (bitter).. And the other great thing about nellikkai (amla) is that it is used in so many varieties of dishes and it is sooo healthy.. The health benefits of it are so many that you can write few books on it.. And today's recipe if going to use this amla in a very easy way!!

Fruit Rice

Today's recipe with fruits is very interesting form of rice. It is a great idea to pack for lunch, for parties and also a quick dinner.. The flavor is mild and will be little sweet, so please serve them with spicy side dish.. I served them with spicy Aloo Gobi. I got this recipe from a TV show.

Tomato Rice / Thakkali Saadam

Tomato rice is a popular variety rice from South India. It is a desired recipe for its tangy and spicy flavor and its beautiful red color. Each house has its style and way of making it and this is how I make it. . Tomato paste is optional, but it adds lot of flavor. This is my choice for T in the cooking with alphabets for this month’s marathon.

Sakkarai Pongal

Today is Vaikunda Ekadasi festival and happy to share this nivedhanam!! Sakkarai Pongal is the sweet made for the Pongal festival.. It is simple and easy to do..  Love these food that are so simple, yet so traditional and so authentic.. I have added 6 table spoons of ghee, but feel free to add more.. Sakkarai Pongal can take all the ghee and will not complain. You could also make this like a evening tiffin..

Kalkandu Saadam / Kalkandu Pongal

Festivals are fun and we prepare so many delicious prasadam. Pongal / Sankranti is celebrated in many parts of the country. The God celebrated here is Universal one – The Sun. There are lots of delicious food prepared during this festival. Some we make at home are Sakkarai Pongal, Ven Pongal, Kalkandu Saadam, 7 Kari Kootu, Akkaravadisal, Poli, Mixed rice etc.. This Kalkandu Pongal is a delicious preparation made with rock sugar and tastes so divine.. A delicious and easy sweet preparation which is very festive and mouthwatering.

Mangai Saadam / Raw Mango Rice

Mango is the king of fruits and the raw variety called Raw Mango or Green Mango is used in a lot of cooking.. We used its powder as Amchur powder, we use the raw mango for pickles, rice, in sundal etc.. Mangai Rice is a very delicious and tangy South Indian variety rice. It is very appetizing in its appearance with its beautiful yellow color from turmeric. This is a quick recipe and taste best when served hot fresh, but also makes a great travel food. The best accompaniments for these variety rice dishes are Spicy potato fry, appalam, chips or vadam.

Zafrani Pulao - Hyderabad Style

A very elegant and delicious pulao.. There are different kinds of the zafrani pulao - one is sweet and other is spicy.. I was in no mood for a sweet rice preparation. So I chose the savory version from here that I had bookmarked and served it with a Paneer dish. This is my choice for Z – Regional

Pulikachal / Tamarind Rice

Call traditional recipes and this is one of the recipes you can think of. Ask people what is their most common travel food, then this will surely be one of them.. This is dish that can be made ahead and stored in an airtight container for a month. To serve, just mix with hot cooked rice. This is made primarily with tamarind. Using sesame oil gives the best taste and flavor but other cooking oil can be substituted if sesame oil is not available. Lot of Ingredients are to taste. This is my first recipe to the “Vegan Thursdays” group that I have joined. The idea is to share Vegan recipes on first and last Thursdays..

Granola Bar

Granola Bar is a great, easy and quick snack which is also healthy… Too many good stuff in one.. This quantity would yield 10 to 12 bars. I chose this recipe for BM #25 under Baking with whole grain, the choice of grain today is Puffed Rice. I got this recipe from here.

Mor Kali

Mor Kali is a quick and easy tamil tiffin item which can be prepared under 15 minutes and you do not need an elaborate side also, just urugai or vathal kuzhambu will do.. I love this and can eat it as is!!

Thiruvathirai Kali

Thiruvathirai is a festival celebrated in the Margazhi Maasam on the Thiruvathirai Star.. Thiruvathirai kali recipe is a festival food made on thiruvathirai. It is a very delicious recipe that is served with 7 vegetable kootu (recipe will come soon).

Puttu – Arusi Vella Puttu

Traditional, tasty, long process all adds up to this delicacy vella puttu. This is made during Navarathri Friday or any day on Navarathri. It can also be served as light evening tiffin.This recipe will serve 2 to 3. It is a very long and tedious process and making it step by step will make it easier and more clear. Like many authentic and traditional recipes, small things are also important here and it is such an unforgiving recipe. So give yourself a lot of time and peace when doing this. At least for me, I will not multi task when I am working on this puttu. The taste is just out of the world and is delicious. Have used a lot of tamil words here, (so mentioning the english / hindi words –
Ravai – Sooji / Fine semolina
Veshti - Dhothi / cotton white cloth
Taambaalam - Big Plate
Paahu - Jaggery syrup consistency

Brown Rice Dhokla

Khaman and Dhokla are used together, but I see in some websites, that they are not the same and are very different from each other. Dhokla is made with rice and urad dal whereas khaman is made with besan. Some people also call this dhokla as White Dhokla and the Besan Dhokla as Dhokla. I will leave this decision to Gujarathis to guide me on this. Coming to this recipe, it is Brown Rice Dhokla, meaning dhokla as mentioned above with rice and urad dal. In South India, we make Idli which is with Rice and Urad dal and it is almost a staple food in many houses. Traditionally made with white rice, this recipe has a little bit of health included with the inclusion of brown rice. I got this recipe from here we all enjoyed it with tomato chutney. It was very spongy and soft and was a pleasure to learn a new dish. You would get about 18 idlis and around a 9 inch pan filled with dhokla with this recipe. I made this in both idli moulds as well as in an 9 inch round tin. So the next time, I would make the recipe in half or do 2 batches.

Ingredients
Brown Rice - 1 cup
White Rice - 1 cup
Ulutham Parupu / Urad Dal - 3/4 cup
Kadalai Parupu / Channa Dal - 1/4 cup
Green Chili - 5 - 3 slit cut and 2 minced fine (remove seeds if wanted)
Silken Soft Tofu - 12 oz.
Lemon Juice - 1/4 cup
Eno Fruit Salt - 1 tea spoon
Salt - 1 1/2 to 2 tea spoons
Oil - 2 tea spoons
Mustard Seeds - 2 tea spoons
Coriander Leaves (finely chopped) - 1/2 cup
Grated Coconut - 1/4 cup
Cayenne Pepper - to sprinkle on top (optional)

Method
Soak the rice and dals for around 8 hours or overnight
Drain and blend them to a smooth paste, adding little water at a time. Do not add too much water, then you cannot blend.
Once it becomes a smooth paste, add the tofu (chopped) and lemon juice and blend again till all the tofu is well incorporated
Set aside for 6 hours to ferment. After 6 hours, keep in the fridge until later use. The original recipe suggested to use within 6 hours, but mine was not even close to done, so I allowed it to ferment for the entire 6 hours and then kept in the fridge overnight and made the dhoklas the next day for breakfast
Grease a 9 inch pan or idli plates or dhokla plates and set aside
Add 1/4 cup coriander leaves, minced green chili and salt to the batter and mix it well
Heat water in a pan which is bigger than the greased pan and let it come to a boil
Now add eno fruit salt to the batter and immediately pour the batter to the greased pan and keep inside the bigger pan with boiling water
Steam cook (no whistle if using pressure cooker) for around 12 to 15 minutes until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean
Remove from heat and transfer to a plate
Sprinkle little cayenne pepper on top
Heat a pan and add oil and allow the mustard seeds to crackle, add the slit cut green chili and pour the entire oil over the top of the dhokla
Garnish with coconut and coriander leaves and serve warm or on room temperature!!!



Comparing White rice and Brown Rice (from Wikipedia) -
Brown rice and white rice have similar amounts of calories and carbohydrates. The main differences between the two forms of rice lie in processing and nutritional content. When only the outermost layer of a grain of rice (the husk) is removed, brown rice is produced. To produce white rice, the next layers underneath the husk (the bran layer and the germ) are removed, leaving mostly the starchy endosperm. Several vitamins and dietary minerals are lost in this removal and the subsequent polishing process. A part of these missing nutrients, such as vitamin B₁, vitamin B₃, and iron are sometimes added back into the white rice making it "enriched". One mineral not added back into white rice is magnesium; one cup (195 g) of cooked long grain brown rice contains 84 mg of magnesium while one cup of white rice contains 19 mg. When the bran layer is removed to make white rice, the oil in the bran is also removed. Rice bran oil may help lower LDL cholesterol.^[3] Among other key sources of nutrition lost are small amounts of fatty acids and fiber.^{[citation needed}

Sending this to My Guest Hosting event – Taste of the Tropics – Coconut, Chef Mireille’s page, Healthy Foods for Healthy Kids - Combo Meal, Nithu's page, Bon Viviant - Rice Dishes, Breakfast Recipes, Lentils and Legumes, FFNF, Priya's page, Nupur's What's with my cuppa, CWS - Urad Dal, Priya's page,

Sprouts Pulao

Sprouts is very good for health – this is universally known. Generally sprouts is served as a salad. This is an interesting twist to the sprouts and the sprouts compliment the pulao and the pulao compliments the sprouts. A very colorful dish sure to appeal to the eyes. I am adding this recipe in time to celebrate Indian Independence day on August 15th. The dish has the tiranga colors - saffrons color, white color, green color, representing our flag. Could not find any blue color ingredient to add for the chakra. The amount of garlic and green chili can be adjusted to taste and preference. Serve this with curd, raitha or a spicy gravy.

Arisi Upuma

Arusi (rice, in English) upuma is a very simple, yet very tasty tamil tiffin which tastes best when served hot. Best accompaniments are puli kuzhambu, tomato urugai, mango pickle, sugar, vathal kuzhambu etc. I actually eat it as is. I love this upuma when my mom makes it. It is one of those recipes which I always ask her to do it for me. Yummm… I never get bored or tired of this yummy one... How many ever times I do it, I still do not get that perfect taste that she has... You can also add grated coconut in this and it will enhance the flavor even more.

Chitrana–A quick rice

Chitrana is a quick rice recipe with ingredients all in the kitchen. This rice dish is a complete meal with protein from sesame seeds, peanuts, lentils and cashew, carb from the rice, fat from the nuts and ghee. This rice needs no cutting, not much preparation and can be made very quickly. This can be made vegan by substituting butter with more oil or vegan butter. The flavor of the rice comes from the freshly ground mix. I got this recipe from here.

Ingredients
Peanuts - 3 table spoons
Sesame Seeds - 3 table spoons
Kadalai Parupu / Channa Dal - 1 table spoon + 1 tea spoon
Ulutham Parupu / Urad Dal - 1 table spoon
Red Chili - 4 + 4
Mustard Seeds - 1/2 tea spoon
Sesame Oil - 1 tea spoon
Ghee / Clarified Butter - 2 table spoons
Curry Leaves - 15
Cooked Rice - 2 1/2 cups
Tamarind - amla sized
Warm Water - 1/2 cup
Coconut - 2 table spoons
Salt - 1 1/4 tea spoons
Asafetida - 1/4 tea spoon
Cashew - 10

Method
Soak tamarind in warm water for 15 minutes and extract pulp and set aside
Prepare rice and allow it to cool on a plate so that each grain of rice is separate.
Heat a pan and dry roast the peanuts and once golden, set aside
Similarly dry roast the sesame seeds and once little golden and nice aroma comes, set aside and grind to a powder when cooled with the peanuts.
Heat the same pan with sesame oil and roast the channa dal (1 table spoon) and urad dal and 4 red chili until golden and grind to a powder when cooled.
Heat a big pan and add ghee. Add mustard seeds and when it crackles, add the cashew and roast till golden. Add channa dal, asafetida and red chili.
Add curry leaves and roast all until the channa dal and cashew turn golden
Add the tamarind pulp, turmeric powder and salt. Once it boils for a minute, add both the grinded powders and stir continuously.
It will thicken very fast, so make sure to stir continuously.
Remove from heat and add rice and stir gently to combine
Heat oil in a pan for frying the vadam
Fry the vadam of choice and serve this yummy rice with the vadaam

Linking this to 30 Minute Mela, Spotlight - Rice/Roti/Pulao/Poori, Pari's preschooler snacks, brain child of Nithu's Kitchen, Show Me Your HITS - Rice, Sangee's page, South Indian Cooking Series #1,