Curd Rice

Almost twenty years back, while on a trip to Puri in a train, infamous for it's long route through the length of the country, I had seen a young girl at one of the widows, eating a preparation, or better, a mixture of rice and curd, wrapped in green banana leaves. I had instantly realised it was curd-rice, and thought it was surely one of the best foods in the whole world.

Strangely, I did not ever try cooking, or rather assembling this recipe in all these years, until a couple of months back. The temperature in Kolkata soared up, and I found it impossible to spend long hours in the kitchen trying to cook a full-scale Bengali meal. It was around this time, that I came around a couple of one-pot meals prepared by my acquaintance on Orkut, Madhumita, and thought of churning up some for myself too. I tried out a couple of recipes, experimenting on my own. Then I remembered curd-rice. I scourged the cookery blogs for recipes, found quite a few, took the best tips from all, and concocted up my own version of this super-coolant!!

Ingredients:

1. Cooked plain rice - 2 cups ( I do not think using Basmati rice would be good for this recipe; the aroma of Basmati will clash with the other ingredients); the rice should be neither piping hot, not straight out of the refrigerator, rather at a room temperature.
   
2. Thick, white, sour curd - 1 cup ( home-made or branded), chilled
   
3. Curry leaves- a handful
4. Urad dal /split white lentils- a handful, washed and soaked in water for about half an hour
5. Peanuts -a handful, shelled and cleaned; Pre-roasted peanuts will reduce the cooking time.
   
6. Onion- 1 big, sliced
7. Ginger - 2tsp, slivered
8. Green chillies - 1-2, chopped (add more if you prefer)
9. Salt to taste
10. White Oil - 2btsp
11. Mustard Seed -1tsp
12. White Cumin Seed- 1 tsp
13. Dried Red Chillies- 2
    

Procedure:

1. Heat oil in a pan/kadai.
2. When heated well, add the dried red chillies, and fry until darker in color and an aroma comes out.
3. Next, add the mustard seeds and cumin seeds; wait until they start spluttering.
4. Add the curry leaves, onion, ginger and green chillies. Fry for a while until the mixed aroma of all ingredients come out.
   
5. Add the peanuts, followed by the soaked (and drained) urad dals. Add some salt. Stir fry continuously until all ingredients are cooked well.
6. Put off the gas and let this masala/tadka cool for sometime, while you arrange the plate.
7. Arrange the plain rice on a plate; add chunks of white, sour curd. Sprinkle salt to taste. Now add the prepared masala/tadka on top of the rice and curd.
8. Mix well and savor the warm-cool delicious curd rice.