The nation is celebrating 69 years of glorious freedom.
For me, my fondest memories of the Independence Day are from my school days. We would wake up, get ready for the flag hoisting, there would be a special assembly that day. We would shout slogans and get sweets later. We were all blissfully unaware of how the world changed outside.
Years have passed. Despite the headlines, I still like to foolishly hold on to the feeling that I had in school. A naive notion that, everything will be fine and one day our country will be free of all evil. So to match my mood, I decided to make tiranga bhaat for my family.
Just like the name says, it is a tri-colored rice. This baath is a combination of 3 different rice dishes - a carrot tomato rice, garlic flavored potato cauliflower rice and a mint bean rice.
In short,
This tiranga baath can be given to toddlers of 1 year and above. You can adjust the spice levels according to your child's liking.
I am sure your toddler or kid would like this tri-colored presentation.
Easy tiranga baath recipe - step by step preparation method:
There are many recipes floating around on the net. But I decided to not follow any particular recipe.
The idea was 3 different coloured rice which is healthy and yet easy to make. Do not let the long instruction list scare you, I promise you, it is really simple.
Start with soaking the rice in water for 20 to 30 minutes. This helps in faster cooking of the rice and the rice doesn't stick. Cook it well. Peel and grate the carrots, finely chop the onions and tomatoes, finely slice the beans. Cut the potatoes into small cubes and cauliflower into small florets.
Peel the garlic. For the people who hate doing this, you can always pop it in the oven and let the oven do the job for you.
Heat oil, add cumin seeds, once it splutters, add ginger and garlic paste. Then add the onions and fry till translucent. Add the tomatoes to the onions and sauté it. To the tomatoes, add red chilli powder, turmeric powder and a little water and cook it till mushy.
Then add the grated carrots to this. Let it cook, then add garam masala and then allow it to cook for a while more.
Drain and let your rice cool. Moving on to the next layer. Here we saute ginger garlic paste and onions. Then let it cool.
Grind the mint with above mixture, green chillies and water. The consistency should be a bit runny. Heat a heavy bottomed dish and add the mint paste. Cook the sliced beans in this mixture.
Moving to the next mixture, we heat a pan, add oil and add the clove and cinnamon. Once a nice aroma of the spices waft out, add the crushed garlic. Once the flavor of the garlic seeps into the oil, add cooked potatoes, cauliflower and stir fry briefly.
Divide the rice into three portions. Mix one portion with the carrot-tomato mix, the next portion with the mint -bean mix and the last portion with potato-cauliflower mix.
Enjoy hot with raita, papad and pickle. I served mine with a tomato and onion raita spiced up with chat masala powder.
Do try this tiranga baath recipe at home to liven up the Independence Day spirit. Do share your little one's response in the comments below.
If you are looking for rice recipe for kids, do try out the tomato rice and curd rice recipes.
Also do not forget to try out our Indian flag DIY.