Moong Dal Kichidi

A delicious, healthy and filling rice dish

Kichidi (or Pongali as we call in Telugu) is a staple food in many Indian households. This is usually served as breakfast during weddings too. In our case, we mostly eat this during dinner time. And we like our kichidi to be little spongy and soft, so I add an additional cup of water than the regular 2 cups water for 1 cup of rice. My version is little different than the authentic version.

Let's see the recipe:

Ingredients: 1½ cups Rice 1 cup Split Moong Daal (Pesara Pappu, Yellow Lentils) 1 small Tomato 1 tsp Black Pepper Powder A small piece of Ginger 1 tsp Ghee A handful of Cilantro 3 or 4 small green Chilies 6 cups Water Salt as required For Seasoning: ½ tsp Mustard Seeds ¼ tsp Cumin Seeds ½ tsp Black Gram (Senaga Pappu, Chana Dal) ½ tsp Bengal Gram (Minappappu, Urad Dal) Some Curry Leaves 1 tsp Cashews 1 tsp Oil Preparation: Chop tomato, green chilies and ginger into tiny pieces. Keep aside. Combine rice and moong dal and wash well. To this add the chopped veggies along with black pepper powder + cilantro and add the required water (6 cups) and salt. Pressure-cook this until 3 whistles. When all the pressure is gone, add seasoning + ghee and mix well. For seasoning, heat oil in a pan, and add the mustard seeds. When these pop, add the cumin, Bengal, black gram dals along with the curry leaves and cashews and stir until the cashews and dal turn into golden brown in color. Add this seasoning to the cooked kichidi. Finally add ghee to the kichidi to make it more aromatic and mix well. Enjoy this kichidi with desired chutney and some papads on side.