Bisibelabath

 Ingredients

Raw rice – 1/2 cup, heaped 

Toor dal – 1/4 cup 

Tamarind – 1 tsp, packed 

Small onion, shallots – 8 

Potato – 1 

Fresh peas (I used mochai) – 1/4 cup 

Carrot – 1/2 

Jaggery – 1/2 tsp 

Turmeric – 1/4 tsp 

Ghee – 1 tbsp 

Cashew nuts – 8 

To roast and powder

Red chilli  – 5 

Coriander seeds – 1 & 1/2 tsp 

Urad dal – 1/2 tsp 

Chana dal – 1 tsp 

Black pepper – 1/4 tsp 

Fenugreek seeds – 1/4 tsp 

Cumin seeds – 1/4 tsp 

Asafoetida – 1/8 tsp 

Cinnamon – 1/2 inch piece 

Clove – 1 

Marathi moggu – 1 

Dry coconut – 1 & 1/2 tbsp 

Method

Soak rice, dal separately for 30 mins and pressure cook well. I keep tamarind also in pressure cooker for easy extraction of juice. Once done, mash them and extract tamarind juice with 3/4 cup water.

Peel potato, carrot and cut into cubes. Boil these veggies with mochai (avarekalu/ field beans) in a cup of water until 3/4th done. Gather the ingredients to be roasted ready.

Meanwhile, in ghee, fry cashew nuts until golden and keep aside for garnish. In the same kadai, add red chilli, coriander seeds, urad dal, chana dal, asafoetida, cinnamon, clove, marathi moggu first.

Add cumin seeds lastly. give it a stir and add coconut. Roast until golden and cool down. Make sure to roast in low or medium flame to avoid burning.

Powder the roasted ingredients once cooled, into a fine powder.

In the same kadai, wipe the coconut and add ghee. fry small onions until transparent.

By now the veggies would have got cooked 3/4th. Transfer sauteed onion to it.

Pour tamarind extract, add in turmeric, salt, jaggery.

Add powdered spices and mix well. Bring to boil. If it is too thick, you can add 1/2 cup more water.

Add cooked rice, dal, mashed well. Cook carefully in medium flame stirring well to avoid stuck/ burnt at the bottom. You can use any heavy bottomed vessel or even small pressure cooker. Once the mixture heats up and bubbles (2-3 mins), add the fried cashews and switch off the flame.

Tips

For perfect texture, make sure to add enough water while cooking rice and dal as well as in step 10. I use 1:3 water ratio for both rice and dal. 

I had mochai in stock so added it. You can add fresh green peas or beans too in place of it. 

I used byadgi chilli for colour as well as it is what authentically used in bisibelebath. It looks bit shrunken and longer than the regular red chillies. 

I used desiccated coconut in place of kopra. 

Instead of cashewnuts, I see people using peanuts too for garnish.