Lemon rice

South India’s main food is rice. South Indians add several flavors and taste to the white rice and makes the simple white rice to very different and tastier one. One such variety is Lemon rice. A simple formula for lemon rice is cooked white rice + Lemon juice + Seasoning.

There are many versions of lemon rice are available. You can add vegetables, onion, ginger or cooked chick peas (black or white) to the Lemon rice along with the seasoning. This makes the Lemon rice lot more tasty and healthy. Little changes to the lemon rice make a lot of difference to the taste.

Following is the one simple and basic version of lemon rice.

Ingredients:

• Rice – 1 cup(uncooked)
  
• Lemon – 1(Extract juice from a lemon) or 3 to 4 tbspns of fresh lemon juice
• Salt – to taste

For seasoning:

• Mustard seeds and Urad dal – 1 teaspoon
• Cumin seeds – 1/2 teaspoon
• Peanuts – 1/4 to 1/2 cup
• Chana dal(Kadalai paruppu) – 2 teaspoons
• Green chili – 4 to 6
• red chili – 2 to 3
• Curry leaves – 1 sprig
• Hing – 2 to 3 pinches
• Turmeric powder – 1/4 teaspoon
• Oil – 4 to 6 spoons(as required)

Recipe:

1. Cook Rice with Salt and keep it aside. Each cooked rice should be well separated and fluffy.
2. Heat Oil in a pan. Add Mustard seeds, Urad dal and Cumin seeds, fry for less than a minute.
3. After that add Peanuts and Chana dal, fry till it turns into light brown color.
4. Add Green chilies, Red chilies and Curry leaves. Fry till the dals turns into nice golden brown. Take care not to burn the dals or chilies while you fry.
5. Add Hing,Turmeric powder and a pinch of salt , fry for a minute. Remove the pan from heat.
6. Finally add the cooked rice and lemon juice to it and mix well with the other ingredients.

Goes well with: Chutney or Raita