Black Pepper - Cashew Rice

My "cooking from a cookbook" themed, Day 4 post of BM#7 comes from "Healthy South Indian Cooking", co authored by Alamelu Vairavan and her American neighbor for the past two decades, Patricia Marquardt. When I was looking for cookbooks in my local library, this book caught my husband's attention for the word 'South Indian" and we borrowed it. J This book has a very good collection of South Indian style recipes, especially the ones belonging to Chettinad cuisine. Some of them are very new to me and I can't wait to try them.

Being a South Indian, rice is a staple dish in my home and I am on a lookout for new rice dishes. For the same reason and the simplicity of it, I tried this savory black pepper - cashew rice. The authors mention that it goes well with both vegetable and meat dishes or raitas. However I served it with plain raita since it was spicy enough on it's own.

Ingredients:

1 cup rice (I used Sona masuri rice. Basmati variety can be substituted.)

For tadka: 2 Tbsp oil / ghee, 1 tsp urad dal (split black gram), 1 tsp mustard seeds, few curry leaves and 1 dried red chilli, broken into bits

1 onion, finely chopped

1 tsp pepper powder

1 tsp cumin powder

1/4 cup dry toasted cashews

Salt to taste

Method:

Wash the rice and cook adding 2 cups of water. Let cool to keep the grains separated.

Heat oil in a pan and add the tadka ingredients. When mustard seeds start to pop, add chopped onion. When onion turns translucent, add pepper and cumin powders, salt and cashews. Mix well.

Check what my fellow marathoners are cooking.

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