Rice with Urad Dal Spice Powder

Blogging Marathon# 58: Week 1/ Day 1 Theme: Bring on your Rice Dish: Rice with Urad dal spice powder
Can't believe we are only few weeks away from a New year, time sure seems to fly. We are starting a new edition of Blogging marathon today and my theme for this week is 'Bring on your Rice', Valli wants us to post any rice based dish.
As a South Indian, rice is our staple food and every meal essentially revolves around rice. So it is only natural that I take up this theme to try some more new rice dishes.
First up is this South Indian rice flavored with urad dal spice powder. Recipe is from Dakshin by Chandra Padmanabhan. This is a very simple and easy to make dish. Spice powder made with urad dal (minapappu), peppercorns and dry grated coconut is used to flavor the rice.
This is a great dish to use up leftover rice. Served with papad or chips, this makes a delicious meal.
Serves 4
Ingredients:

• 1cup Rice (I used Sona Masoori Rice)
• 2tbsp Cashews, broken
• 1tsp Mustard seeds
• 1tsp Chana dal
• 1tsp Urad dal
• 1, halved Dry red chili
•  ½tsp Asafoetida
• 8~10 Curry leaves
• 2 Green Chilies, finely chopped
• To taste Salt

For Spice powder:

• 2tbsp Urad dal
• 1~1½tsp Peppercorns
• 2tbsp Sesame Seeds (optional)
• 2tbsp Dry grated coconut

Method:

1. Cook rice and let cool.
2. Make the Spice powder: Dry roast all the ingredients for the spice powder until golden and aromatic. Cool slightly and grind to a powder. Keep aside.
3. Heat 1tbsp ghee in a saute pan, add the cashews and fry till lightly golden. Remove from the heat and set aside.
4. In the same pan, add 2tbsp more ghee, add mustard seeds, chana and urad dal, dry red chili, asafoetida and curry leaves. Once the mustard seeds start to splutter, add the green chilies.
5. Next add the cooked rice, spice powder and salt. Mix well to combine all the ingredients. Garnish with fried cashews and serve hot.

Lets check out what my fellow marathoners have cooked today for BM# 58.