Coconut rice is a common and staple dish in South India. It works well with leftover rice and if you have grated coconut ready, then this is what you can make easily. It is a simple recipe and can be made even by those who don’t know cooking except rice. If you don’t know how to cook rice, then try using a rice cooker. This just takes around 30-45 minutes to cook.
Prep Time: Under 30 min
Cook Time: Under 15 min
Serves: 2 people
Ingredients:
Grated coconut – 2 cups
Medium grained rice (Soak in water for 20 min and cook so that the grains separate. You can try left over rice as well) – 1 cup
Split black gram/Urad dal – 2tsp
Bengal gram/Chana dal (Soak in water for 10 min) – 2tsp
Dried red chillies – 3-4 or as per taste
Mustard seeds – 1tsp
Asafetida/Hing powder - 1/4thtsp
Springs of curry leaves – few
Cashews – 5-10
Method:
1. Start with grating a coconut. You’ll need 2 cups of fresh grated coconut. Frozen grated coconut works as well but fresh is fresh after all.
2. Now Take a teaspoon of oil or ghee and temper the seeds in a pan. Once they start to pop, add black gram, Bengal gram, red chilies, cashews, curry leaves and hing. If you want you can add curry leaves later.
3. Check if the lentils turned brown and cashews are roasted. F it’s done, add grated coconut to it and stir it for 5-10 min till it turns reddish brown.
4. Add the rice now to the pan and mix all these ingredients well.
5. When you are done with mixing it well, take it in a plate and serve hot with papad or roasted potatoes.
This is how the delicious coconut rice can be prepared. Other than these if you want, you can add few more ingredients which you think will make it more yum.