OK so curd rice has soft-cooked rice mixed with curd, maybe some milk, and seasoned with the usual spices (mustard, cumin, ginger, daals, curry leaf, hing ...) - What else is in your curd rice? - Do you have a short-cut recipe for this already easy dish for busy days? - Do you use store bought yogurt? Which brand or type to use and which to avoid? - In what order do you add the spices to the oil? - What do you like to have with it? What you don't like? - How to preserve it for a few hours like when traveling? .
Heat a pan with ghee, in goes asafoetida, followed by mustard, chana chal, urad dhal, cumin seeds, dry and green chilly(i add both), curry leaf, cashew and raisin. Add this to the cooked and mashed rice alongwith salt and curd and use hand to mix well. I have seen people adding grated carrot and cucumber too. While traveling mash the cooked rice and mix it with milk, mixing with curd will make it sour, if it is hot and humid place. Else, if there is option to mix the rice while traveling, best is to put the tadka on the cooked mashed rice, and carry the curd separately, mix it before eating. I love to have curd rice with avakaya pickle and tomato thokku. I dont like it with anything else. Regards Nandini
I add either finely chopped raw mango, cucumber or pomegranate seeds. The tadka is ghee with hing, mustard seeds, curry leaves and green or dried red chilies.The hing has to be the real deal, not LG. I also add fried cashew nuts. I usually buy yogurt. My favorites are Maple Hill or Brown Cow whole milk cream top yogurt. I never buy low fat or non fat. I don’t make large quantities, but back in the day if the curd rice was to be kept for a while the ladies would cut the yogurt with plain milk so it wouldn’t turn sour as quickly. The only proper accompaniment to such goodness is a bottle of freshly prepared avakkai, but since no one I know is around to witness my heresy I will confess to eating it with a dollop of Brooklyn Delhi’s tomato achaar or roasted garlic achaar.
huhh do we know each other? Even when I was overseas, I always preferred a home made avakaya. Priya pickles comes close and there should always be stock at home. Easy go to and filling comfort food. Come after a long days work, put some rice and you are done. So much better than those frozen foods.
all the usual tadka that @Rihana already listed + green grapes without seeds + self-made cornflakes mixture (no garlic) or magiga mirapakaya or sago papads I like the bite of ginger - so I prefer chopped ginger to ground/grated ginger. The only way it stays fresh for a long time is to use boiled and cooled to warm milk and use curd enough only to set. If I am making for a party, I use half-water half-milk to even cook the rice, so that it is creamier. Magai, avakai, dabbakaya, nimmakaya or menthi mango - any pickle (no garlic) is great
Train journeys and curd rice, what a great combination. My mom always packs lemon rice & curd rice for train journey. We happily enjoy it until the last bite. Ahhh good old sweet days!!! If given an option curd rice is the only dish that I can relish for every meal. I love adding grated carrot, green grapes and pomegranate apart from the usual tadka with that subtle ginger taste. Creamy curd rice with lemon pickle is so heavenly. Lol it’s midnight and I’m drooling I recently came across some recipe on IG by replacing rice with chia seeds. Heard it’s very tasty… Long back I tried it using Nylon sabudana and it was very good. Will try to make it with Chia seeds this time!! The only thing I would hate in my curd rice are onions. Some restaurants add onions to curd rice and I cannot tolerate it I have no problem adding onions to Raita but adding onions to curd rice produce some weird smell and taste which I don’t like. So I stopped ordering curd rice these days.
Oh yes priya pickle.comes.close to home made avakaya, nothing beats the aroma, color and taste of andhra home made avakaya. You nailed it, back home from a tiring day to a plate of rice, avakaya and oil, finish the food by licking all the pickle stuck on fingers. I sometimes mix avakaya with curd and have it, i know it is crazy.