Tomato Rice – Thakkali Sadam Recipe

• Wash and rinse raw rice and soak for 10 minutes.
• Take rice and water in a pressure cooker and cook over high flame for up to 2 whistles and switch off.
• Once the pressure settles, spread over a plate and let it cool down a bit.
• You may use any leftover cooked rice for this recipe instead of cooking a fresh batch. Always warm up the cooked rice before mixing with the base. Once cup of raw rice roughly yields about 3 cups of cooked rice.
• You may use any kind of rice for this recipe. Raw rice (ponni / sona masoori / basmati / samba ) works for this recipe.

To make the base gravy

• Heat oil in a pan and temper with mustards seeds.
• Add bengal gram and split black gram to it and fry till it turns golden. Make sure to fry these dal until golden before adding the next ingredient,
• Add fennel seeds, cumin seeds and curry leaves to it and fry for few seconds.
• Saute thinly sliced onions for 3 to 4 minutes over medium flame.
• Add ginger garlic paste and fry along until the raw smell goes.
• Add chopped tomatoes and saute for few minutes.
• Add turmeric powder, red chili powder and salt. Saute for for minutes.
• Cover and cook for 5 -6 minutes over low flame to cook the tomatoes.
• When done, add garam masala powder and mix. This step is optional, temper a small piece of cinnamon if you skip garam masala powder.
• When done, add cooked rice along with jaggery and mix well.
• Again cover and cook for 5 minutes over low flame.
• Garnish with chopped curry leaves and switch off!
• Serve it with raita, papad and choice of veg curry!