Khichuri - A different blend!

Please tell me that there were others who had no idea until late last week that there was a rice crisis brewing! Look, I am kind of priding myself on the fact that I have been pretty good with reducing the refrined, beautiful, unblemished rice in my diet and have switched to other variations of carbs, hence the ignorance!

Well, anyhow, a couple of weekends back, I go to my local indian store, which has become just so much better than anything I could dream of a couple of months back, and find this somewhat small unassuming pack of pretty pink rice call Rose Matta, liked the looks brought it home, I figures how wrong could you go with 2 lbs. of rice. Looked up this discovery some more and here is what I found,

Jugalbandi gave me an insight into a lot of interesting rices including my new discovery, of course Mahanandi, and finally yet another blog that convinced me, Go Rosematta!

So, not quite sure what to do, I decided to do an bengali-style khichuri. A khichuri is a lentil-rice combination, no matter how you slice it, what makes a khichuri a bengali one, in my opinion is the spicing!

So, this is what I did!

Gota Moong Kichuri - Whole mung kichuri with RoseMatta Rice

Serves 4

Ingredients

3 tbsp oil

1 onion thinly sliced

1 tsp cumin-coriander powder

1/2 tsp turmeric

1 tsp salt

1 tsp red chili powder

3/4 cup green moong dal ( with the skin on)

1/2 cup rose mata rice

1 large potato, cut into 8ths

1 tomato, quartered

1 cup cauliflower, florettes

1 tbsp ghee

2-3 bay leaves

2-3 whole green chillies

Method of Preparation

1. Heat the oil in a pressure cooker and add the onions with the cumin-coriander and turmeric and saute for 5 minutes.

2. Add in the salt, chili powder, rice and dal and mix in for 2 minutes.

3. Add in the potato, cauliflower, tomato and stir well.

4. Add 1.5 cups water and cook under pressure for 15 minutes.

5. Cool for 1o minutes and check and adjust for seasonings.

6. Heat the ghee and lightly cook the bay leaves and chillies.

7. Serve hot and enjoy a much healthier and new cheaper khichuri!