Tuesday 15 June 2010

Coconut rice – South Indian style.



Coconut rice is a very popular rice preparation from Southern part of India where coconut is found in abundance in almost every household. In south Indian cooking, anything and everything including gravies, dry curries, rice varieties, snacks, sweets etc mostly uses coconut in different forms at different stages of its maturity. Juice from the tender coconut is used as a refreshing summer drink and the flesh is scooped and eaten. Sometimes the flesh is blended along with the juice for a delicious drink. Mature coconuts are peeled, the shell is then cracked, and the flesh is then grated using a coconut grater, a handy tool designed specially for grating coconut. In the western countries, you might not be able to find the coconut scraper. In that case all what you can do it, place the whole coconut (Husk removed) on flame turning all sides for around 5 minutes. It works well on electric hobs as well. Due to high heat, the shell will loosen from the flesh and start to crack. Drain the coconut water off or drink if if you wish. Cover the heated coconut in a cloth and Crack open the shell using a rolling pin. Covering the coconut using cloth will prevent any mess that occurs while cracking the shell. The flesh can then directly be grated using our regular vegetable box grater and the flesh can be frozen infinitely.

Grated coconut in used in many dishes as it is to give a sweet bite. Mature coconuts are scraped for flesh which is then ground to extract milk which is used in many savoury dishes to impart a rich and sweet taste. It is also used in many desserts and puddings or payasams. It is also famous being used in cookies, tart and cakes. Coconut at later stage is sun dried where oil is then extracted from them and is used for everyday cooking and frying! Now for ease of use, you get coconut in all processed form - readymade coconut milk in cans, coconut in desiccated form and coconut powders that can be just mixed with hot water to produce coconut milk and even coconut cream. Freshly grated coconuts are also available widely in frozen form mainly in the Asian stores. All these processed form of coconut tastes good, but nothing would beat the fresh coconut taste. That’s just a general info for my non-Indian readers here. Here you go with yet another tasty rice preparation, which goes well with many vegetarian and non vegetatian curries equally.


South Indian Coconut rice
Serves 6

Ingredients:
3 cups Basmati rice (uncooked)
1 ½ cup freshly grated coconut
Salt as required
Water - to boil rice.

For tempering:
1/3 cup – ½ cup coconut oil
2 tsp Urad Dal
1 tsp Channa Dal (Bengal Gram)
1 tsp Black mustard seeds
2 pinches asafoetida
2 twigs curry leaves
4 whole dried Kashmiri red chillies, halved
15 Cashew broken or a handful of peanuts

Preparation:

1.Wash rice several times. In a large saucepan bring water to boil. Add salt and rice and give it a good stir to avoid forming of lumps. Keeping the lid open, cook rice till done. (You can boil water in a kettle, to ease up the process). Take the pan off heat and drain water off in a strainer or colander.

2. Meanwhile, Heat another large saucepan, large enough to accommodate all rice (you can use the same pan used for cooking to reduce washing up!). Add oil and when hot, splutter mustard seeds followed by urad dal, channa dal and cashew nuts.

3. When both dals and nuts start to take golden colour, add chillies and curry leaves and stir for few seconds. Add in coconut and stir well to coat all the tempered oil and cook for 2-3 minutes. Add asafoetida and mix.

4. Tip in the drained rice and mix well until the tempered coconut is evenly distributed all over the rice. Serve hot with any non vegetarian or vegetarian curries.

N.B: Make sure not to burn the lentils because that will impart bitter flavour to the rice.

22 comments:

Priya Suresh said...

My most favourite rice, just love with crushed papads over the rice..

Cool Lassi(e) said...

Nice Thengai Saatham! You are right about this being used in almost every south indian dish..Lol. Hey where did you get those lovely earthern pots? They look fabulous!

Shabs.. said...

Priya....i too fell in love with this ever sinc ei had it from one indian restaurant here....never had it in india though...

Cool lassiee....shhh....We get some kind of sweet curd from indian shops in those pots. I reserved them just for pics....lol..:)....As any food blogger, always our mind is on how to capture a better picture right. So some wastes like this pot rests in my shelf.
Love,
shab.

Suji said...

Ohhw wow..Adipoli coconut rice, we too love this a lot...Super clicks Shabs...

Love
kairali sisters

Nitha said...

Looks great... Never had coconut rice prepared in this way.. The one I had from my friend's place was cooked in coconut milk.. This also sounds interesting..

PranisKitchen said...

any dish with coconut gives a special tatse..we are coconut lovers..this coconut rice is simply delicious..nicely done..the picture itself saying how yum it is

Prajusha said...

shabs,
rice looks yummy and pics are so beautiful..pinne pot kanaan nalla bhangi undutto.:)
www.icookipost.com

Life is beautiful !!! said...

Wow !!! what a presentation. Looks perfect Shabs. I loved the pots. They are so cute. Looks absolutely delicious.

Rachana said...

What gorgeous pics, Shabs! I would love to have this coconut rice :-) So delicious and I love those earthen pots.

Sarah Naveen said...

Wow shabs!!!!! this looks wonderful with an amazing click...


yummy yumm

Aparna said...

luvlyy nice click..feel like grabbing the whole

Vrinda said...

Awesome clicks n perfectly cooked rice....

Parita said...

Gorgeous clicks dear..rice looks so delicious..perfectly cooked!

Rach said...

The coconut rice looks so yumm :) I usually make this quite often at home, as it is very very easy and quick. You may be interested in having a look at my version, I have a traditional coconut rice recipe at my blog. Lovely collection of recipes here :)

Mowie @ Mowielicious said...

Wow - great blog! Really like the food & photos here. Will be coming back.

Shifa said...

hey.....dont worry....i have loads of stuff other than med in my pocket, so that we can talk and enjoy..without a full stop.hehe...
by the way can u tell me their names? 48th batch na?

Pavithra Elangovan said...

Yummy spread... everything makes me drool and have it right away....

Magdalena said...

Great picture ! I like a lot coconut rice (so far, I have been experimenting with Thai recipes)....Great

Nimi SunilKumar said...

hi shabs ..lovely snap..lovely rice!
adipoli aayitundu kto!

cheers
Nimi

Sarah Naveen said...

Shabs!!!!
i thought the same thing looking at ur pic :)
ah pinne... camera same thanne...but i started taking pics in outside, i mean in balcony..so lot of natural light ;)..pinne do something in picasa...

My Kitchen Antics said...

those pots look adorable..
abt the sambar..even i suck at it....totally.
pinne hope ur chicken pox is better...havent seen u on fb fr a long time..get well soon

Cool Lassi(e) said...

Hey dear,
Thanks for letting me know where to get those pot. Seriously, I dunno if an Indian store in the US carries then. Will look around.

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