Quick Yum Daal & Rice meal

Happy Onam everyone:) For those who are missing out on the extravagant Onam sadhya lunch, try this!

This is my go-to meal when I am feeling extremely lazy to cook. Its easy, tasty and very satisfying.

You will need very few things:

To make the jeera rice: - basmati rice (1/2 cup) + water to boil rice (3/4 cup)

- bay leaf

- 3 cloves

- jeera/cumin seeds

To make the daal curry:

- toor dal and/or urad dal (1 cup) + water to boil daal (2 1/4 cup) - 4 tbsp vegetable oil/ghee/coconut oil - jeera/cumin seeds

- one medium-sized onion - one tomato - three green chillies (or how many ever you want) - two garlic cloves - 1 tsp chilli powder - pinch turmeric powder - 2 tsp coriander powder - salt to taste - mustard seeds and red chillies - for the Tadka - coriander leaves for garnishing

DIRECTIONS: 1. Boiling the dal:

Usually 1 cup daal serves one person. To boil it, you always add slightly more than twice the amount of water (here 1 cup dal + 2 1/4 cup water). Boil in a pressure cooker preferably - for 5 whistles.

So, first boil the daal, mid-way while you wait for 5 whistles and all of the vapour to release by itself, start chopping the veggies.

Boiling rice: Start boiling the rice right after you have cooked the daal and finished chopping the veggies, so that by the time you have the daal curry ready you will have the rice also ready.

1/2 cup basmati rice (or even the sona masuri rice) serves one person. You usually add slightly LESS than twice the amount of water: here 1/2 cup rice + 3/4 cup water. Cook in pressure cooker preferably - 3 whistles. For a tastier rice, add the bay leaf, jeera/cumin seeds and the cloves plus som ghee (yum yum yum)

2. For the daal curry: Add oil - burst the jeera/cumin seeds till they brown:

3. Add the green chili, chopped onion and garlic, cook till onions turn pinkish transparent:

4. Add the chopped tomato:

5. Add all the masala (turmeric, coriander & chili powder) + salt to taste, cook till tomatoes turn mushy, soft and the powdery-ness of the masala goes away:

6. Add the cooked daal + some more water so that its not too thick. Mix everything very well and cook on low heat for 5 minutes:

7. Daal is ready. For the tadka, you will burst mustard seeds and red chilli in some ghee:

.... and add it to the daal:

8. Add some coriander leaves to the daal for garnish. The rice should be ready by the time you have finished with this. Enjoy and for sure, let me know how you liked it!