Khichuri

Ingredients

Serving size: 5 people

  • Rice: 500 grams
  • Moog Daal (Roasted): 500 grams
  • Cinnamon: 4 sticks (2.5 centimeter long)
  • Whole Cardamoms : 4-5
  • Whole Cloves : 4-5
  • Whole Cumin Seeds (Jeera): A liberal pinch
  • Bay Leaves: 2
  • Ginger: 4 cm long, chopped fine
  • Whole Green Chillies: 2
  • Turmeric Powder: 1.5 teaspoonful
  • Mustard oil: 60 milliliter
  • Salt: As required
Instructions
  1. As goes with the Bengali tradition, first rinse the rice and leave it to dry in a colander. The daal is washed and roasted until it gives a beautiful flavour which is quite unlike the raw daal.

  2. Heat water in a kettle not boiling for the cooking. Adding hot water always aids the cooking process than adding cold water.

  3. Put oil in a heavy bottomed cooking pot and after it gets hot put in the whole garam masala with the bay leaves. When they start sputtering and gives out a flavour add the cumin and the ginger and cook by stirring until you get the nutty flavour of cooked ginger.

  4. Add the rice to the oil and fry for 2/3 minutes.

  5. Add the roasted moog daal and the turmeric powder after adding some water (hot). The level of water should not be more than 4 centimeters (1.5 inches) above the level of rice and daal.

  6. After checking for the lentils to get cooked add the whole green chillies, salt and sugar to taste and just before removing from the fire add some powdered garam masala.

  7. The Khichuri is accompanied by fried halves of potatoes, chicken, red meat, Hilsha or some other fried fish, sometimes eggs, and any other fritter that you can think of. Only thing is that they should be crisp and exciting.