Coconut rice

There are easier ways to make coconut rice but the flavor that comes in the rice when you cook it in freshly extracted coconut milk, is just amazing. Well, I am a person who loves to take short cuts in cooking and in many of my recipes I use ready made coconut milk. But for a few recipes I don't mind that extra effort that goes in extracting fresh coconut milk. This rice recipe is one of them.

Hope you like it.

Ingredients

* 2 Cups rice
* 4 Cups coconut milk (made from fresh coconut, check below)
* 3 Tbsp thinly sliced Coconut
* 2 Tbsp chopped cashew nuts
* 2 Tbsp raisins
* 1 large onion (thinly sliced)
* 1 Tsp Gram dal (chana dal /lentil)
* 1 Tsp Mustard seeds
* 2-3 dry red chilies (broken in half)
* 2 Tbsp desi ghee
* Salt to taste
* Oil for deep frying

Method

Wash and soak the rice in water for at least 1 hour. Meanwhile prepare the coconut milk. I take about half of a fresh coconut for this purpose. This much gives a nice flavor. I use all the first, second and third milk for this.

This is how to extract coconut milk from a fresh coconut.

Take half a coconut and either grate it, shred it or cut into small pieces. Put in a blender. Now take one cup of hot water and pour on this. Blend well and then strain well. Repeat the process another two times. By the third time you observe that most of the milk has been extracted. Measure 4 cups of this extracted milk, in case it is a bit less, add that much water. Keep aside.

Deep fry the thinly sliced onions, on a medium to low heat, till golden brown. Drain on kitchen paper.

Now boil the rice in the extracted milk. Use a pressure cooker if you want or else just add the rice, 4 cups of coconut milk and salt in a pot and bring it to a boil. Cover and simmer till rice is cooked. Turn the rice over in between and when all the milk gets absorbed, simply turn off the heat, keep the pot covered and let it stand for 5 minutes.

Melt the ghee in a cooking pot. Fry the sliced coconut till light brown. Remove with a slotted spoon and keep aside. In the same ghee fry the cashews and raisins, remove and keep aside. Top up the ghee if required. Add the mustard seeds and when they sputter and the gram dal. When the dal becomes light brown, add the red chili. Now carefully transfer all the cooked rice in this pot. Add the cashew nuts, raisins, coconut slices and fried onions. Mix gently.

Enjoy the flavorsome coconut rice with a curry on just like that.

If you liked this coconut rice, you might also like a few more rice recipes

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