Coconut rice by Pinky

This is another South Indian addition to this month's posts contributed by Pinky.

Ingredients:

Basmati Rice,
Grated fresh/dry coconut
Curry leaves
Dried red chillies
Urad dal
Mustard seeds
Green chillies
Coriander eaves
Salt to taste
Pure ghee (2 tbps)

Method:

1. Cook rice with salt added.
2. Heat pure ghee in a pan and add mustard seeds, red chillies, urad dal. Stir and fry until the chillies darken and the dals turn golden brown.
3. Add the curry leaves and coconut, and stir and fry for a minute or two.
4. Gently cook the coconut mixture until the coconut turns a toasted reddish-brown and becomes quite crisp. It burns easily (especially if the coconut is dry), so don't take your eyes off it for a second, and keep stirring. Mix gently the coconut mixture and hot cooked rice. Garnish with coriander leaves.

Lemon rice by Pinky

I am amazed how cuisine in India is developed according to climate & geographical preferences. Rice is the only major crop grown in southern India & hence most of the recipes are woven around rice. Lemon rice, tamarind rice, idlis, dosas all have to have rice. This is a contribution from Pinky again, I assume since she is partly Tamil by marriage, this recipe is an authentic one :)

Ingredients

Rice (Basmati)

Lemon juice

Curry leaves

mustard seeds

Roasted peanuts

Chana Dal (2 tsp)

TurmericDried

red chilles

Green chilles

coriander leaves

Salt to taste

Method

1. Cook Basmati rice with salt and keep aside. (left over rice can also be used)
2. Heat the oil in a pan and add the mustard seeds,chana dal, curry leaves and green chillies.
3. Fry till the spluttering stops and add the peanuts. Fry for another minute (Cook until dals change colour to light brown. )Add the turmeric powder and stir well.Add lemon juice and cooked rice.
4. Mix well very gently so that the rice grains does not break. Garnish with coriander leaves

Chicken Biryani by VCD

Ingredients
Rice 1.5 cups
½ cup yogurt
250 gms boneless chicken
2 tbsp oil
Crushed fresh ginger garlic
2 onions cut lengthwise
2 tomatoes sliced into circles
2 tbsp red chilli powder
1 tsp turmeric powder
2 tbsp coriander cumin powder
2 tbsp Everest Biryani masala
Some cashews & raisins (Optional)
Some cardamoms & cloves (~10 each), 3-4 sticks of cinnamon, 5-6 saffron threads
¼ cup warm milk (soak saffron in this warm milk for 1 hr atleast)

Preparation

• Boil water, put cardamom, cinnamon, cloves in boiling water. Let rice cook for 2 mins in this boiling water. Rice should be half cooked. Strain rice with cloves etc. & keep it aside.


• Put oil in a pan. Add fresh ginger/garlic paste to this oil.


• Add some onions to this oil. Let the onions cook in oil till they are red. Cashews if used should be added at this stage as well, so that they are kind of fried. Add all the masalas to this mixture. Add the chicken & let it cook for a while (5-7 mins). If needed add 1/8 cup of water to keep the masala mix wet.


• Pour this mixture at the bottom of a container. Place tomatoes in layer over this mixture. Pour ½ cup curd over tomatoes.

• Pour rice over the curd. Pour saffron milk (0.25 cup) over this. Pour 1 cup water into the rice mix & bake in oven at 375 F for 60 minutes.


• Chicken can be substituted by veggies like cauliflower, bell pepper, mushrooms & carrots.

Amount of spices added can be varied as per personal preference.

Serves: 4