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Comfort Khichdi

~you have to cook something just for yourself

~you have come home late after a shopping spree and have no interest in searching through take-away menus

~ youre feeling low in spirits

~youre recovering from an illness

~youre feeling homesick

~your maid is on leave/ or the dishwasher has conked off

Khichdi is a simple gruel of a lentil and rice which can be made bland / spicy, with/ without vegetables. Its very versatile and can be made in a matter of 10 minutes if you have a pressure cooker and in 20 if you dont. Its also very forgiving-because you dont need each grain of rice to be separate as in a pulao. You just throw in the ingredients and it take care of itself.

Im sure everyone has their own recipe of Khichdi reserved for the times mentioned above. Mine goes like this-

Serves 2

Ingredients:

1/2 cup rice

1/3 cup split green moong (shown in pic)

1 medium onion-sliced

Handful of frozen green peas (optional)

Pinch of turmeric powder

Salt to taste

1 tsp cumin seeds

1 tsp curry powder (optional )

2 tsp ghee (clarified butter)

Method:

1.Take a big bowl. Dump the lentil and rice into it. Wash it three to four times with water. Soak the rice-moong mix in lots of clean water for around 20 minutes. You can actually skip the soaking process if you are in a hurry / or if you are going ot pressure cook.

2.In the cooker, take a tsp of ghee. Add the cumin seeds and let them crackle. Put in the sliced onions and turmeric powder to the ghee. Saute until translucent.

3.Add the rice and lentils, saute for a few seconds. Put in the required amount of salt, curry powder, frozen peas (if using) and water. Water must be double the quantity of the rice-lentil mix. In this case, roughly two cups. Let it come to a boil. Close the lid of the cooker, with the weight. Get the flame to SIM after 3 whistles. Switch of the flame in 3-4 minutes.

4.Open the cooker lid after it has cooled off outside. Serve the khichdi onto a plate and run a little ghee around it for that absolutely home-cooked aroma.

Eat it piping hot, with your favourite pickles and a bowlful of curd.

You cant get more comfortable than that!!

Note:

For those of you who dont have a pressure cooker, proceed with step 2 using well-soaked rice and moong, in a non-stick vessel / saucepan. Add the water as in Step 3 and let simmer for 15-20 minutes, adding more water if necessary to make the mixture soft and mushy. In case of Khichdi, the mushier the better. So, you are better off adding more water as against less. My khichdi as shown in pic isnt as soft as I would have liked it to be.

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This one goes for FMR #6- For the love of rice which is being hosted this time by Cooking adventures of Chef Paz

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Just to remind you that you may send me your Weekend Breakfast entries by 10th July for the Weekend Breakfast Blogging (WBB) # 1 round-up

WBB is an event sponsored by Saffrontrail. For event details, click here

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Since this has split moong (lentils) as one of the main ingredients, I would also like to link this recipe for Jihva for Dal hosted by Sailu.