Yogurt Rice, an Easy, Healthy Indian Comfort Food

Although my husband Murthy and I are both Indian, I come from Bengal and he from the state of Andhra Pradesh, and our cuisines are different in many ways. Marriage to him, in fact, has made me realize how diverse the culture of India is, a fact that I’ve tried to explore in novels such as One Amazing Thing and Oleander Girl.

Over the years, I’ve learned to cook several of the comfort dishes that put a smile on Murthy’s face. Today I made yogurt (curd) rice, South Indian style.

Friends who saw the photo I posted on my Facebook page wanted the recipe, so here it is.

As with most of my cooking, it’s simple and quick. (Life is just too short--I'm prepared to spend only so much of it cooking!) I use leftover rice, but you can also make fresh rice and spread it out to cool. If you want to experiment, you can use brown rice or quinoa (but Murthy, who is a purist in such matters, strongly objects to such substitutions!)

Preparation time: 20 minutes.

Ingredients:

1 cup cooked rice, cooled

1 cup yogurt, or a yogurt-buttermilk mix

1 T vegetable oil

Salt to taste

Frying spices: 1 tsp black mustard seed, 1 tsp cumin seed (optional), 2 whole red chilies, 1 tsp split urad dal (black lentil), 10-15 fresh or dried curry leaves. (I like lots of curry leaves--you might want less than this).

1 inch chopped ginger, 1/2 chopped green chili (optional)

Preparation:

1. Mix the rice and yogurt together in a big bowl. If you want the consistency softer, add more yogurt or buttermilk.

2. Add the chopped ginger and chilies into the rice mix. Mix in well.

3. In a small pan, heat the oil and add the mustard seed. When it crackles, add the cumin seed and urad dal. As they brown, add the red chilies and curry leaf. Take off the fire once the chilies turn dark. Pour onto the rice mixture and stir well. If you like, you can cover and cool it for 30 minutes in the refrigerator before serving.

Note: Some people like to add chopped coriander leaf (cilantro). Some people like to add chopped cucumber, chopped green mango or chopped grapes. I sometimes mix in a little lemon juice to add a tang.

Enjoy—and write to me about some of your favorite comfort foods.

Just Having Written

An admired poet and writing teacher, Bob Hass, once told me, "It's hell writing and it's hell not writing. The only happy state is just having written."

Over the years, I've come to experience the truth of the statement. If you're a writer, you have to write. But writing can be hard. The days when inspired beauty flows straight from the brain of God via your computer into the world are few. The rest of the time, it's a lot of staring at the blank screen, or writing a sentence only to delete it, or trying to get into the head of a character who persists in remaining opaque.

Today, though, I'm in a happy state, having completed and turned in to my publisher Simon and Schuster a novel-in-stories. It's about 3 generations of Bengali women, grandmother, mother and daughter, whose lives span two continents (I'll let you guess which two). It's also about the men who love, betray and transform them.  This was a new form for me to work in. Very exciting. Very challenging. I fell in love with it after reading books like Louise Erdritch's Love Medicine, Denis Johnson's Jesus' Son, and Jennifer Egan's A Visit from the Goon Squad. 

We're still working on the title. Possible contenders will soon be posted for a reader poll on my FB page, so please check https://www.facebook.com/chitradivakaruni in a couple weeks.

To celebrate this euphoric state of just having written, I decided to cook. (While I write, my patient, long-suffering husband mostly gets to eat steamed broccoli. On good days I make khichuri, a one-pot wonder containing rice, lentils, an assortment of whatever vegetables are in the frig, and spices. It tastes pretty good--but maybe less so after you've been eating it for a month).

So, here's what I made: Bengali-style Stir-fried Zucchini

Preparation & cooking: 20 minutes

Ingredients: 2  zucchinis, halved lengthways and sliced thin
 vegetable oil for frying
1 and 1/2 tsp of panch phoran, a five-spice mix popular in Bengali cooking, or less to taste

[if there's no Indian store nearby, you can mix your own in this manner:

1/2 tsp cumin seed
1/4 tsp nigella seed
1/4 tsp fennel seed
1/4 tsp black mustard seed
small pinch fenugreek seed (caution: it has a bitter taste)]

2 whole dried chilies
 red chili powder to taste--I use 1/4 spoon
1/4 tsp turmeric powder
salt to taste
a pinch of sugar, or more to taste

Heat oil in a frying pan. When the oil is hot, add the panch phoran and whole chilies. When they sputter, add the zucchini pieces and stir for a few minutes. Add the turmeric and red chili powder.Let the zucchini brown a little. Add salt. Lower heat to medium and cover. Stir it every couple of minutes.  When the zucchini is cooked but not mushy, remove cover and make sure the liquid gets absorbed and the zucchini gets golden brown. Stir in the sugar. Remove from heat.

Serve with hot rice and lentils.

Let me know if you liked this.