Masale Chitranna

Preparation

• Pressure cook the rice as you normally do but ensure that the grains are separate and fluffy. Let the rice cool down to room temperature.
• Soak tamarind in 1/2 cup of water for 10 minutes. Squeeze and extract it’s juice discarding the residue.

Method

1. Heat a cooking pan and add black sesame seeds. Dry roast them stirring continuously till the splutter. Transfer it to a plate.
2. Reheat the same pan adding 2 tsp of oil followed by both lentils, coriander, cumin, fenugreek seeds and red chillies. Roast them till the lentils turn little brown and chillies puff up. Put off the flame and let it cool. Then add all the roasted ingredients in to a mixer jar and powder them together finely.
3. Next heat the cooking pan with 3 tsp of oil, black gram lentils, mustard seeds and curry leaves. As the mustard seeds crackle include peanuts. Saute for a while and then include tamarind extract, jaggery, turmeric powder and salt. As the jaggery dissolves and tamarind juice starts to boil, add the spice powder prepared in above step.
4. When the spice powder cooks in tamarind juice it becomes like a paste then switch off the flame. Include cooked rice and mix well with your fingers. Garnish with coriander leaves and grated coconut.
5. Very delicious and popular masale chitranna is ready to serve.

Notes

• Do not over cook the rice which may turn the grains mushy and chitranna will not taste good.
• You can prepare the spice powder in advance and store for a fortnight.
• When you mix the rice with spice mix, make sure rice has cooled down. Otherwise grains may break as you mix.