Nellikkai saadham/ Amla rice

Amla Rice is a very heart-warming, easy to do, delicious, nutritionally loaded rice that can be had as a meal with something as humble as a papad or raitha to a poricha kootu.

Ingredients:

Amla ( big ones)                                           7 nos
Brown Rice  or white rice                              2 cups (cooked)
Lemon / Lemon juice                                    1 nos / 2 tsp
Salt                                                              As needed


To temper

Oil                                                              1 tblspn
Mustard seeds                                              1/2 tsp
Curry leaves                                                 1 sprig
Kadalai paruppu/Chana dhal                           1 tsp
Green chillies                                                3 nos split into 2 pieces each


Method

1.) Grate amlas and discard the seeds. If using frozen amlas thaw it overnight in the refrigerator or keeping it at room temperature for a night.
2.) Take a large stir fry pan and heat. Add oil and mustard seeds to splutter.
3.) Add kadalai paruppu/Chana dhal and fry until golden borwn. Add green chillies and fry till change in colour. Add curry leaves to splutter.
4.) Add the amla gratings to fry it for a little longer than a minute. Add salt to it.
5.) Remove it from the stove and add juice from one full lemon or add a tsp of lemon juice.
6.) Add cooked rice and mix well. Leave it for 5 minutes for the flavours to infuse,

Nellikkai saadham/ Amla rice is ready. It is a quick to make and a tangy-yummy rice that can be had with just appalam, vadaam/vathal, or it makes an awesome combo with avarakkai poricha  kootu.

My special tip would be to request you to use brown sona masoori rice for this recipe, as the taste of this amla rice is great with brown rice and the white one.

For more information:

My experiments with brown rice Part 1

My experiments with brown rice - Part 2

My experiments with brown rice - Epilogue

My experiements with brown rice - Epilogue

Part 1, Part 2


Not to drag on for much longer, I am trying and finding out brown rice to be more and more versatile  every day. It is proving great for thokku saadhams ( mangaai thokku saadham ( mango thokku rice) and nellikkai thokku saadham ( Indian Gooseberry thokku rice) are simply astounding!). Avakkai rice, thogayal rice (mint thogayal, coconut thogayal, peerkangai thogayal)  everything tastes  great!  Brown rice upma tastes great too.

The reason for me for writing this elaborate write-up (for some might have been boring too) was to say that brown rice is a very tasty option that is very healthy too. There might be people at different points in life for whom brown rice becomes compulsion than a choice. I have heard many say eating brown rice is an unfortunate circumstance, many placing brown rice inferior , many sniping it to be "healthy". I do not know why it has got such a reputation. But from my side, I would like to get the word around that brown rice is a superb gifted option, often surpassing the taste of its white counterpart and we all can gladly make a shift. Yes, it takes a few times before we cook the rice perfectly! But even the trial times are not bad! So happy Brown ricing!!!

My experiments with brown rice - Part 2

Epilogue, Part 1


Having bought the Sona-masoori version, I wanted to cook our regular South Indian meal. Rice with sambhar, rasam, kari (veggies !! not meat. I am a veggie), kootu, thayir pachadi. 

Brown Sona Masoori Rice

I am very used to quinoa.  So I guessed brown rice should be great with sambhar like quinoa and will make awesome sambhar saadham ( sambhar rice) . I was skeptical about rasam saadham ( rasam rice) and had good hopes on thayir saadham ( curd/yoghurt rice). Before seeing how it turned out, I want to narrate my experiences on cooking the rice, its texture and everything in that department.

Cooking brown rice is a bit different is what I would say. It needs more water and more cooking time as the husk is partially left on the grain, it has a tough coat. Thus the cooked rice is not as soft or spongy as white rice, but a bit tough(not uncooked) and rubbery. When you pressure cook, it is more soft, but still not as soft as white rice. It definitely has a different texture. This works great for basmathi rice as I use it only for making pulav and fried rice varieties. For south Indian dishes, I strictly use ponni raw/ sona masoori as I feel basmathi's flavour mightily clashes with sambhar, rasam or for the matter of fact any south indian stew/soup to give it a weird unoriginal taste. Okay, coming back to basmathi rice, white or brown, I cook it in a saucepan or electric cooker. The pulavs and fried rice just taste out of the world aided by the texture and the effect ghee and black pepper ( for fried rice) has over brown rice. 

I was a lot skeptical when thinking about south indian food though. The recipes call for the rice to be a lot more soft ( but not mushy). I put great faith in pressure cooking the rice, added more water had it in for 3-4 whistles and 10 mins on low heat before switching off when cooked along with toor dhal and other stuff in separate containers. Yes, it turned out a lot lot softer but still a bit rubbery. For sambar rice, it tasted great as expected, better than its white rice counterpart. When had as sambar rice, even the texture difference was not detectable. Rasam rice sucked :( . Curd rice had a very different unappealing look as I was used to the bright white color spongy buttery melting madness, it was brown-white, clearly textured, never melting but great tasting curd rice. Taste Wise we can never find fault but looks are sub-normal. Coming to the conclusion that looks don't matter as long as it tastes good, I started cooking brown rice on the days I made just sambar and on the days I made rasam, I had it with white rice. My husband, still said that brown rice with rasam is good too and I know that he has pretty high standards for taste. But I couldn't accept. The earthy taste clashed with rasam and kind of overpowered it for me. The rubbery texture of the rice was a rasam repellent!! That made things worse. 

What made sambhar cohesive but rasam to repel?? DHAL!! Yes! Dhal was the answer to solve a problem like Maria!!! That Was my EUREKA moment! The next day, I made some rasam. I mixed rice with dhal and ghee  as we do for the kids and then had rasam on top of it and I was in a state of trance until I finished a plateful and again I went for another serving.  And thus our family's marriage to brown rice happened and we are living happily ever after!