Muga God Khichdi (Sweet Lentil Rice)

HAPPY MAKAR SANKRANTI! HAPPY PONGAL!
A Sankranti special sweet rice with lentils.

Ingredients:
Mung Dal/Split Green Gram - 1/2 cup
Raw Rice - 1 cup
Grated Coconut (fresh or frozen) - about 3/4 cup
Jaggery or Brown Sugar - about 1/2 cup
Cashews - 10
Green Cardamom/Elaichi - 5 pods
Ghee/Clarified Butter

Method:
1. Heat about 2 tbsp ghee in a heavy bottom pan. Add mung dal (or whole mung bean with skin) and roast at low flame. Saute till mung dal turns aromatic, about 5 minutes. Save it for later.
2. Heat about 2 tbsp ghee in the same pan and add rice. (I used Basmati, you can use your favourite variety of rice.) Saute till rice turns fragrant, about 5 minutes.
3. In the same vessel, to the roasted rice, add roasted mung dal and 4 - 5 cups water. Cook till both rice and mung dal turn soft. Add more water if required.
4. When both rice and dal get cooked, add coconut, brown sugar, ground cardamom and cashew pieces. Cook at low flame till all the ingredients are mixed well. Turn off the heat and garnish with fried nuts.
5. Enjoy sweet Muga Dali Khichdi with a dollop of ghee.

Indian Dal / Lentils

Lentils, known as Dal are a staple in an Indian diet, especially vegetarian. For me, dal is comfort food. 5 different dal varieties - Toor, Moong, Chana, Masoor and Urad are commonly used in Indian sweet and savory delicacies. You can cook dal with just one kind or a mix of two or more. I generally cook dal with 1:1 Toor and Moong dals. But then, we like Panchmel or Panchratna Dal too, which is made of all five. Most dal recipes have Toor dal as the primary ingredient. It is also known as Toovar or Arhar dal or Split Pigeon Peas . Some of our family favorite dal recipes are Dalitoy (Konkani Dal) Tadka Dal Among all lentils, moong dal and masoor dal take lesser time to cook. Moong dal is also known as Split Green Gram or Split Mung Bean . Moong dal is also used in making sweet dishes like Mung Dal Kheer Mung Dal Puranpoli Chana dal is also known as Split Bengal Gram or Split Chickpeas . Chana Dal takes a little more time to cook as compared to toor dal....

Naval Kol Bhaji / Kohlrabi Stir-fry

Green Kohlrabi called as Navalkol in Marathi and Navilkosu in Kannada, belongs to the cabbage family. My Mom used to make this stir fry very often. Just like cabbage, this vegetable in available in two colors - green and purple. I was quite hesitant about the purple one, as I haven't seen that back in India. Anyway, I picked the green bulbs and Navalkohl Bhaji with Chana Dal was part of our healthy vegetarian meal today.

Surti Val Papdi Bhaji

My Mom used to make Val Papdi Bhaji in a simple way with few ingredients. This is the first time I gave it a try here in my US kitchen. This stir fry does require little more oil, as no water is added for cooking. Dal Rice tastes great with this sauteed Papdi. I tried this Bhaji once with frozen Surti Papdi and I was not happy with the result. I prefer fresh Papdi for this recipe, which I can only find in the local Indian store. I am not sure if Val Papdi is called as Navy Bean or Fava Bean in English.

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