The everyday staple of rice in our diets can easily become boring. Sometimes it’s a what-to-cook situation, and, simply being fed-up (no pun intended) with plain rice. Well, in keeping with my weekday vegetarian approach to eating, I have been making several Indian-style rice dishes to accompany our Guyanese-style fried vegetables. I am not talking about Biryani(s) or Pulao(s). These rice dishes would be more considered as a type of “fried” rice because they are flavoured and reheated with rice – cooked fresh or leftover from the day before.
You may recall me saying in my first column of 2019 that my eating habit has changed – whereby I am not really hungry, and my eating has been fickle. As a result of this, I have not been eating rice as often as I used to, not for any reason other than I don’t feel to. However, in order to make my food more interesting, I have been making these Indian-style rice dishes which has me eating less and more rice. Let me explain.
The quartet of Jeera (cumin) rice, Tamarind rice, Lemon rice, and Coconut rice are fried-up with their title-ingredients as well as spices such as mustard seeds, jeera, and nuts along with dried or hot peppers and curry leaves. The result is an appealing pot of flavourful rice. The finished rice is so delicious that eating just a little satiates the taste buds, hence I find myself eating less rice but making more of these types of rice dishes.
The other thing that I have noticed whenever I am eating any of these rice dishes – Jeera, Tamarind, Lemon or Coconut – is that I rarely feel the need to have anything else with them, not even the vegetables because they feel and taste like a whole meal on their own. Perhaps it’s because of the nuts (and I do tend to add more because I like the contrast in texture with the fluffy rice). I shared the rice dishes with two of my friends/tasters who are vegetarians and they said the same thing.
Any of these rice dishes can and do accompany meat and seafood dishes, however, I would suggest that the meats/seafoods be roasted or grilled. I say this because the rice itself is impactful, holding its own and not simply playing back-up to the protein main. The Jeera rice is great with any type of curry!
Today, I am sharing with you the recipe for Coconut Rice which tends to be my go-to because of the ready availability of fresh grated coconut.
Coconut Rice
INGREDIENTS
● 2 cups cooked rice
● 1 cup fresh grated coconut
● 2½ tablespoons oil
● ¼ cup cashew nuts
● 1 tablespoon channa dal
● 1 teaspoon urad dal/black gram
● ½ teaspoon black mustard seeds
● ¾ teaspoon whole jeera/cumin seeds
● 7 – 10 curry leaves
● 1 whole dried chili or roughly chopped hot peppers
● 3 – 4 green chilies, split lengthways
DIRECTIONS
1. Add oil to a deep-frying pan and place over medium heat until hot but not
smoking.
2. Add mustard seeds and jeera/cumin, as soon as the mustard seeds start to
pop, add the channa and urad dal and nuts and fry for 45 seconds.
3. Toss in the green and red chilies/hot peppers and cook for 30 seconds.
4. Add coconut and curry leaves, toss with spices and nuts and cook for 2 – 3
minutes.
5. Add rice and toss to cook with other ingredients and cook for 1 – 2 minutes
only.
NOTES
● Cook the rice with salt to taste.
● Eliminate urad dal/black gram if you do not have.
● Curry leaves give a signature flavour to the dish but don’t worry if you do
not have access to curry leaves, the dish will still be very tasty.
Enjoy!
Cynthia
cynthia@tasteslikehome.org
