Recipe - Besibeli baath
Rice cooked with Pigeon peas and vegetables.
Summary:
When I was growing up, I saw my mom spending lot of time in making besibeli baath. We used to love the aroma and taste. It takes lot of time and patience if prepared step by step process. The recipe given below is a shortcut. I have never cooked using the time consuming process like my mother and I feel that one can't really tell the difference between the shortened and lengthy processes.Ingredients:
- Rice - 1 cup
- Toor dal - 1 cup
- Sambar powder - 2 tablespoons ( depending on the spice level)
- Vegetables - beans, carrot, eggplant, capsicum, tomato, potato and onion - 1 cup
- Tamarind - 1 teaspoon
- Salt - 2 teaspoons
- Green chillies - 1 serrano pepper
Seasoning:
- Ghee (clarified butter)- 1 table spoon
- Mustard seeds - 1 teaspoon
- Cumin seeds - 1 teaspoon
- Curry leaves - 2 twigs
- Red chillies - 1
- Asafoetida - 1/2 teaspoon
Process:
Wash dal and rice together and add 6 cups of water. Cook dal and rice with all the above vegetables, green chilli, salt and turmeric. Pressure cook it for two whistles (medium high temperature). Let the pressure release.
Seasoning:
Preheat ghee in a separate pan on a medium high heat, then add cumin seeds and mustard seeds. Allow them to splutter, add red chillies, curry leaves, asatofetida.
Add the seasoning mixture to pressure cooked vegetables, dal and rice. Now add sambar powder
Add the tamarind juice or tamarind paste to the almost ready besibeli baath, mix it well. Add 2 -3 cups of water to bring the desired consistency. Allow it to cook for 5 - 10 minutes on low medium heat and turn off the heat. Garnish with cilantro and serve it hot.
Preparation time : 20 - 30 minutes
Servings - 4
Tips:
- Sambar powder preparation: Refer to Masala's/Chutney powders - Sambar powder.
- To save time from cutting vegetables, sometimes I use frozen vegetables and canned tomato like you see in the pictures.
For Tamarind pulp: Take 5 small stalks of tamarind add half cup of water and microwave it for 2- 3 minutes. The water will decrease to 1/4 cup. Let it cool and then mash the tamarind pulp with a spoon and filter it.
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