Sasive-Kobri Chitranna or Varalu Chitranna

  In today's fast pace life, its fast food,instant food and 2 minute cooking, food!! No time to cook nor people have patience to cook.  Back home(India) also there are lot of resturants,fast food joints, I have seen McDonalds in Bangalore!! So there is no need to cook at home and even if you want to cook, you get all frozen, 2 minute cooking, foods, where cooking time is actually maximum of 5 minutes.

  But in our house, everything is done from scratch!!!! Everyday we cook and the day starts cooking from scratch! It might be coffee, I put filter(Indian),to make decoction and even coffee,its not microwave, its done in Indian style, boiling milk and then adding the decoction and sugar and sipping the hot coffee!!

  Yogurt, I make home made yogurt, where you need to boil milk and then add 3-4 spoons of yogurt to it and depending on the weather, it might take from 3 hours to 9 hours to become yogurt!

  Every cooking involves, frying,grinding,cutting the veggies........!!  Well, needless to say, there will lot of cleaning the dishes,cleaning the counter,kitchen!!!!!!!

  We cook a lot in a day! For example, yesterday, I had made "Avallaki"(Pooha) for breakfast, Bisibelebath for lunch and Masala Dosa for dinner!! Dosa batter, is another elobrate process, soaking the lentis and rice, for 8-9 hours and then grinding and then again leaving the batter for fermatation,it might take 9-12 hours for fermentation.

  Though its a tiresome and tough task to do everything from scratch, my effort becomes worth, when my kids tell "Amma you are the best cooking"!(Mommy your cooking is best)! And when my mother-in-law says that "This is the best masala dosa I have ever eaten in my life"!

  Of course my husband loves my cooking! So that makes me happy and keep going!  I love to share my experiences and recipes with you and hoping that you will enjoy and try my reicpes when ever you get a chance to do it from scratch!!

 So today I like to share "Sasive-kobri chitranna" or "Varalu Chitranna",which is my mom's best est recipes and which is very yummy.  But this not a heart healthy reciepe,but I am sure it will make your tastebuds happy. 

 So here goes the recipe, enjoy and happy holidays!

Ingredients:

1/2 cup Rice
9-10 Tbspn Coconut
1/4 Tsp Cumin seeds
1/4 Tsp Methi seeds(Fenugreek)
1/4 Tsp sesame seeds
1/4 Tsp Mustard seeds
3-4 Red chillies(or adjust according to taste)
3-4 Green Chillies(or adjust according to taste)
Small lemon size Tamarind soaked in warm water
1/4 Tsp Jaggery
Salt to taste
2 Tbsp Oil
1/4 Tsp Mustard seeds
1/4 Tsp channa dal
1/4 Tsp Urad dal
1/2 Tsp Peanuts
Few curry leaves
Few coriander leaves

Method:

  Cook Rice in pressure cooker,not too mushy,and keep aside.

  In a non-stick pan dry fry cumin seeds,methi seeds until it turns golden brown. Fry sesame seeds until the aroma arises.  Grind fried cumin seeds,methi seeds,seseme seeds,mustard seeds,red chillies,green chillies,coconut,taamrind juice,jaggery and salt to a nice paste in the mixer.

  Now take a big bowl and put the cooked hot rice into it.

 Take a small pan and heat the oil and add mustard seeds and when its starts to splutter, add channa dal,urad dal and peanuts and fry on a low heat until the channa dal,urad dal and peanuts turn golden brown and add curry leaves and add that to the rice and mix well.

 Now add the grounded coconut-spices paste to the rice and mix well and garnish with coriander leaves and serve hot and enjoy!

 While mixing rice make sure that you don't make rice mushy. And I would suggest that mix the paste to the rice just when you are ready to eat,since this has to be eaten hot and cannot be warm up again in the microwave since the rice will become hard!