Brown rice bisibele bhath

The last few weeks, my primary focus on the blogging front was renovation - replacing some of the old photos with "new and improved" pictures taken with my new Canon Rebel T2i. Well, a new camera is not going to magically improve my photography skills, but it's a start! Coming to the recipe, this is another tiny step towards replacing the empty calories of white rice with the nutritive value of whole grain brown rice. Statistics reveal that people who have 5 or more servings of white rice a week have a 17% increased risk of contracting diabetes while those who take 2 or more servings of brown rice a week have 11% lesser chance of developing the disease. This recipe particularly tastes great with brown rice. I would never ever make this with white rice again!

Ingredients (serves 2):

brown rice - 1/2 cup
split yellow pigeon peas (toor dal) - 1/4 cup
red gram (masoor dal) - 1/4 cup
tamarind paste - 1 tbsp
sambar powder - 1 1/2 tsp
ginger paste - 1/2 tsp (or a 1-inch piece of ginger - peeled and chopped fine)
mixed vegetables - 1 cup, peeled, grated/cubed as required (I use carrot, peas and cabbage)
salt - 3/4 tsp
bisibelabath paste - 1 tsp (optional)
clarified butter (ghee) - 2 tsp
cumin seeds - 1 tsp
fennel seeds - 1 tsp
cashewnuts - 1 tbsp, broken
curry leaves - 1 stalk
water - 4 cups

Method:

Heat a teaspoon of ghee. Add cashewnuts, cumin seeds, fennel seeds and curry leaves. When the cashwes turns golden, add washed brown rice, pigeon peas, red gram, vegetables, ginger, sambar powder and tamarind paste. Fry for a minute and add 4 cups water. Mix in the salt and pressure cook until soft. Stir in the bisibelabath paste and heat for a couple of minutes. Garnish with a teaspoon of ghee and serve hot.

Notes:
The cooking time for brown rice is much more than that of white rice - almost twice the time, depending on your equipment.