Brown rice paruppu saatham

Dal rice or thuvaram paruppu saatham made with brown rice . Cooking with white rice and red rice of Kerala is always easy for me. Then I tried to make something delicious with brown rice and I am successful many times. Try my Brown rice spinach pongal, Green gram kichdi, and adai to fall in love with brown rice.
While growing up, mom used to make dal separately and mix it with rice and ghee and we would call it as paruppu saatham. But afterwards I learnt from my friend Malar , that  there exists one more version called arisi paruppu saatham, in which rice and dal gets cooked together. This is a one pot meal from Coimbatore. The authentic thuvaram paruppu saatham should be made with white rice and not mushy like mine. I got this recipe from my neighborhood friends and I have tweaked that recipe to fit into our diet days. A few scoops of this rice will be very much satisfying.

Our menu of the day : Brown rice paruppu saatham,baked potato chips and  horse gram chutney.

 

It may look a little watery now, but the brown rice will absorb the water.

Bring everything together to rolling boil in pressure cooker and add salt. Then cook with weight valve on.

Add tomato, chilly and saute till tomato gets mushy.

Saute onion and garlic till they get soft.

Bring rice and dal to a boil.

I used shallots and cherry tomatoes, as I bought them on a sale , but regular ones are just fine.

Ingredients: (serves 4)
To pressure cook:
brown rice - 1 1/2 cup
thoor dal - 3/4 cup
turmeric - 1/4 tsp
hing - tiny piece (1/8 tsp powdered)
salt - to taste
sambar powder - 1 tbsp

To temper:
coconut oil / ghee - 1 tbsp
mustard - 1 tsp
cumin - 1 tsp
curry leaves - few
onion (shallot or red onion) - 1 cup (chopped)
tomato - 3 (I used 20 cherry tomatoes)
green chilly - 3
garlic - 1 (whole)


To garnish:
cilantro (chopped) - few
ghee - 1 tsp

Method:
Wash the brown rice and dal. Soak together for 30 minutes. They totally measure 2 1/4 cups.

Add double the quantity of water + 2 cups. (this ratio is lesser for white rice).  Add 6 1/2 cups water.
Add water to pressure cooker along with rice, dal , sambar powder and start heating. Put turmeric, hing.
In a separate wok, heat oil or ghee. (we can do the entire process in cooker also).
Add mustard , cumin and let it splutter. Then add curry leaves, chopped onion and fry till it gets soft. Then add chopped garlic and saute for 1 minute. Add chopped tomato, green chilly and cook till tomato gets soft.
Pour this to the boiling items in pressure cooker. Add some salt ( 2 tsp) and check if it seems good.
Put the lid , weight valve and cook for 3 whistles. Then reduce heat to minimum and continue cooking for 5 minutes. Switch off.
Open after pressure is relieved, add cilantro and ghee.
Serve hot.

Serving suggestion:
Serve as main course meal with fried appalam, potato chips.
On that day , I prepared horse-gram chutney and baked potato chips as sides. I will post my very own baked potato chips recipe soon.

Sambar Rice

Sambar satham - Rice cooked in lentil soup and sambar powder.

Tamilnadu cuisine has a lot of 'variety-rice' like lemon rice, tamarind rice, pongal, coconut rice, tomato rice and the list goes on. One among them is this sambar rice. We can't just mix sambar and rice to make this rice. The procedure involves cooking the dhal (lentil), veggies and rice together to get this flavorful rice. We can get a similar food by the name sambar soup / dhal soup in some canteens in NJ. It tastes almost like our sambar satham, but in a more soupy consistency, less spices and more butter to suit the International palettes. Here I have given the authentic Indian sambar saatham recipe. This is a one pot meal and my most favorite comfort dish. Just an appalam (pappad) or thogayal (chutney) will make this homely meal more pleasant.

Ingredients:

Rice - 1 1/2 cup
Red gram (toor dhal) - 3/4 cup
turmeric powder - 1/2 tsp
hing (asafoetida) - a pinch
garlic - 5 cloves
shallot / red onion - 1/2 cup
tamarind - 1 gooseberry size
salt - to taste

To grind:

shredded coconut - 2 tbsp
sambar powder - 1.5 tsp

To temper:

ghee - 2 tbsp
mustard - 1/2 tsp
cumin - 1/2 tsp
whole black pepper - 1 tbsp
fenugreek (venthayam) - 1/2 tsp
curry leaf - 1 sprig
cilantro - handful

Mixed vegetables : (cut into 1 inch length pieces)
beans / avarakkai (hyacinth bean)- 10 , fresh green peas - 1/2 cup, carrot-1, tomato - 1 , brinjal - 2,cauliflower - few pieces, green chilly - 2, drumstick - 1

Method:

Rinse the dhal and add 3 times water. Soak for 30 minutes in hot water (makes it easy to cook). Pour it in a thick bottom vessel (like cooking rice). Add hing, turmeric, finely chopped garlic, onion and cook in stove top.
When the dal is almost cooked (after 15 minutes) add the washed rice, cook till dhal is completely cooked. If needed add some more water. Now add the chopped vegetables,salt, tamarind extract and cook covered till every thing gets cooked.
Grind the coconut and sambar powder with some water and add to the boiling sambar rice. Heat a separate wok and fry the items given under tempering and pour over the sambar satham. Switch off! Garnish with freshly chopped cilantro and serve.

Sambar satham is ready!

Serving suggestions:

Serve as main course in lunch / brunch or dinner.
Appalam (papad), vadagam (fryum), potato fry can be served as side dish with sambar saatham.

Pasta Soup

After posting a lot of authentic Indian dishes , I felt like giving something easy like a one pot meal with Pasta. We can make innumerable dishes with Pasta, but this soup is my very own invention:). No need to add any cheese / cream / ranch .The vegetables, nutrition makes it a whole meal and ofcourse a mild dinner after a generous evening snack.
So here goes a pasta dish, Just for a change.



Ingredients:
Pasta (whole wheat) - 1/2 cup (sea shell or Conchiglie Pasta)
Corn (frozen) - 2 tbsp
Frozen peas - 2 tbsp
Shredded cabbage - 1/2 cup
Minced Onion - 2 tbsp
Carrot (shredded) - 1/2 cup
water - 4 cups
Corn flour / All purpose flour - 1 tsp
Tomato sauce - 3 tbsp
To grind:
garlic - 2 pods
Cumin - 1/2 tsp

Method:
Bring to boil 4 cups of water. Then add the pasta , cook it for 10 minutes. Then add the ground items and vegetables given above.
Cook till the pasta becomes soft.
Then goes the tomato sauce.Add salt to taste.
Dissolve the corn flour in 1/4 cup water and add it to the soup.
Bring to a boil and switch off immediately.

Serving suggestions:
Serves 2 adults.
Serve with a dash of freshly ground Black pepper.