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Brown Rice Bisi Bele Bath

Madhuram — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 18:29:41 +0000

Last week I tried Pongal with brown rice and it came out very well, which made me think why not bisi bele bath with brown rice? Earlier I was very hesitant about using brown rice, wondering if we would like the taste or not. To my surprise both of us like it very much. I think this is one of the few things we both agree upon! Brown rice when cooked has a rubbery (is it even a word?) texture. Or simply it is not as soft as its white counterpart. You feel very full after eating a cup of rice, as against wanting more after eating white rice. I made zucchini raitha to go with the bisi bele bath. That’s easy to prepare too. You can find other facts about brown rice here.

Bisi Bele Bath

Ingredients for the Masala Powder

Channa Daal 1 tablespoon

Urad Daal 1/2 tablespoon

Coriander seeds (dhaniya) 1 tablespoon

Fenugreek seeds 1/2 teaspoon

Black Peppercorn 1/2 teaspoon

Cloves 2 to 3

Cinnamon stick 1 inch piece

Red Chillies as required (I used 2 small)

Grated coconut 1 tablespoon

Ghee/sesame oil 1 teaspoon

Ingredients for the Rice

Brown Rice 3/4 cup

Toor Daal 1/2 cup

Turmeric powder 1/4 teaspoon

Vegetables
(I used carrots, beans, potatoes and green peas, 1 cup each) 3 to 4 cups

Onion, sliced 1 medium (or pearl onions preferably)

Tamarind paste 1 tablespoon

Mustard seeds 1 teaspoon

Hing a pinch

Salt as required

Sesamme oil 1/2 tablespoon

Ghee 1/2 to 1 tablespoon (optional)

Procedure

1 Wash the brown rice and toor daal and soak it together (also add turmeric powder) in warm water for at least 30 minutes (the longer the better). Soaking the brown rice in warm water activates more enzymes, which makes it possible to obtain a more complete amino acid profile. For 1 cup of rice and daal use 2 and 1/2 cups of water, so I used 3 and 1/4 cups of water. I did the soaking straightaway in a pressure cooker. After soaking, leave it for 5 whistles and transfer the cooker from the stove if cooking on an electric range, because the heat from the coil will continue the cooking process and you will end up scraping burnt rice from the bottom of the pressure cooker.

2 Meanwhile prepare the masala powder, while the rice is cooking. In a small frying pan add ghee, once it heats, fry (until golden brown) one by one the ingredients mentioned in the list. Once it cools, powder it in a blender/spice grinder.

3 In a medium size pan add the 1/2 tablespoon of oil, once it heats add the mustard seeds, curry leaves (if using) and hing. Then fry the sliced onions. Add a pinch of salt, so that the onion cooks faster. Then add the vegetables and required amount of salt and let it cook for 5 minutes. Once it is half cooked add the tamarind paste and 1 and 1/2 cups of water and close the pan with the lid. Let it cook until the raw smell of tamarind leaves. Then add the masala powder and let it simmer for another 2 minutes.

Alternatively you can do the entire step in a pressure cooker easily. That’s how I do it. I have a small pressure cooker. So as usual I do the tempering, fry the onions. Then I simply add the vegetables, salt, tamarind and water and close the cooker’s lid and leave it for only 1 whistle. If you are using an electric range be sure to transfer the cooker from the stove after turning off the stove, because the heat from the coil continues the cooking process and you would end up having mushy vegetables. After opening the lid, add the masala powder and let it simmer for 2 minutes.

4 Then add the cooked rice and daal mixture to the vegetables gravy and mix it well. If you like you can add the 1/2 tablespoon of ghee or sesame oil now. If the rice looks a bit watery, don’t worry, it will thicken up. You can keep it on low heat for sometime and it will thicken up. On the other hand if it’s very thick add some warm water to loosen it. It’s very forgiving, so don’t worry.

Zucchini Thayir Pachadi

Ingredients

Zucchini, small, grated with skin 1

Salt 1 teaspoon

Yogurt 1 to 2 cups

Canola oil 1 teaspoon

Mustard seeds 1/2 teaspoon

Green chillies, sliced into half as required (I used 1)

Hing a pinch

Procedure

1 Wash the zucchini and grate it with the skin and place it in a bowl. Add the required amount of salt.

2 In a small frying pan heat the oil, add the mustard seeds. Once it splutters add the sliced green chillies, hing and fry it.

3 Add this to the zucchini and mix it well.

4 Mix the yogurt to the zucchini when ready to serve.

My Notes 1 If you don’t have the time to prepare the bisi bele bath masala powder you can buy it. I’ve tried MTR brand and it’s good too.

2 You could also buy the frozen Avial vegetables available in Indian grocery stores and save time chopping vegetables.

3 I have pressure cookers in all size so I used one for cooking the vegetables and one for cooking rice/daal. You can also cook both in any vessel on stove top, but as far as I’ve read brown rice takes more time to cook like that.

4 We don’t eat spicy food, so I used only 2 red chillies for the masala powder. The heat was very mild. If you prefer it more spicy use about 4-5 chillies.

Mashed Beans Roti

Madhuram — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 14:53:32 +0000

Last year during Navrathiri (Dasara), I was preparing green peas sundal (curry). I soaked dried green peas overnight and pressure cooked it the following day. But I guess I added more water than required, so the peas were mashed. I was wondering what to do with so much peas. First I thought of making cutlets, but my husband is not a big fan. That day I was going to prepare chapathis for dinner. So I got the idea of mixing the mashed peas to the roti flour and prepare rotis. The rotis were so soft and added bonus we get the fiber and proteins of the peas also. So now I prepare it quite often with different types of beans.

Ingredients:
There is as such no strict measurements. It’s just mixing mashed beans with the regular chapati flour and preparing the rotis.
Any type of cooked beans (I used half a can of red kidney beans this time)
Whole Wheat Flour – 1.5 cups
Salt
Oil

Procedure to prepare the mashed beans:
1. You can either cook the dried beans yourself and prepare the rotis or use canned beans.

2. For cooking the dried beans, soak it overnight. Add the beans and water (more than the usual amount you use) to the pressure cooker and leave it for 1 whistle. You will get a nice mushy mixture. You can also add grated ginger/asafoetida while cooking the beans to aid digestion of the beans.

3. If you are using canned beans, drain the beans in a colander and rinse it well under running water. Add the beans and little water and blend it to a smooth consistency, like hummus. Be careful while adding water, we need a semi solid paste of the beans.

How to make rotis?
1. Now combine the mashed beans, flour, salt and oil to form the dough. Knead it well.

2. Pinch a golf ball size dough. Knead it again and roll it in whole wheat flour which is set aside for dusting. Flour the surface and roll the dough into a circle.

3. Cook it on a heated griddle on both the sides by applying little oil or spraying non stick cooking spray. You can either cook it one by one or use this tip of rolling out all the rotis at once and then cooking them.

My Notes:
1. You can use any type of cooked beans or can also use a combination of 2 or 3 types of beans.

2. You can also add spices to the flour, like garam masala, red chili powder etc, so that you need not prepare a separate side dish. These masala rotis can be had with yogurt.

This goes to Srivalli’s Roti Mela.

This one also goes to Sangeeth’s Eat Healthy Event, this month’s theme being Fiber Rich.

Also thanks to everybody for voting for me in the Open Sesame Contest May 08 edition.

Roasted Soy Beans or Soy Nuts

Madhuram — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 11:43:43 +0000

I bought a packet of soy beans and was searching for recipes in the internet and came across this recipe. It’s simply soaking the beans overnight and roasting in the oven for 25-30 minutes. As soon as I saw this recipe, I wanted to try the same procedure with some other beans also. I had green mung beans in hand. So I soaked 1/2 cup of each beans separately with lots of water and a teaspoon of salt. Next day morning I washed the beans, drained the water and added some more salt and pepper powder and kept it for another 2 hours. I first tried the soy beans, did exactly what was mentioned in the recipe. I had to roast it for 25-30 minutes to get the desired crunch. As mentioned in the recipe, be careful at the end because it tends to get burnt during the last few minutes.

My Notes:
Roasting green mung beans was easier when compared to soy beans. The roasting time was very less; around 10-15 min is enough. Personally I liked roasted mung beans. But one word of caution, this has to be consumed on the same day itself, the next day it becomes very hard to bite. The soy beans was good even after 2 days.

Variations:
1. You can add any seasonings you want, cayenne pepper, garlic salt, etc.
2. I think this method will work for chick peas (garbanzo beans), green peas also. In that case you can have a healthy mixture of beans for snacking, which is rich in fiber and proteins.