Nei Choru (Ghee Rice)
Servings: 2 -3
Ghee Rice is a simple rice dish cooked with ghee and spices.
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Ingredients
- 1 cup Kaima / Jeerakasala rice refer notes for substitution
- 1 small Onion chopped finely
- 3 Cloves
- 3 Cardamom
- A small piece Cinnamon
- 1 Bay leaf
- Salt
- 1 3/4 - 2 cups Boiling water refer notes
- 2 tbsp Ghee
For Garnishing
- 1 small Onion sliced finely
- 5 - 10 Cashews & raisins each
- Oil / Ghee
Instructions
- Wash the rice well. Crush together cloves, cinnamon and cardamom. Heat ghee in a wide and deep pan. Add crushed masala and fry for a min or two. Add chopped onion and fry till it becomes pink in colour. Add the washed rice and fry for 5-7 mins on low flame. Stir in between. Add salt and boiling water. Cover and cook on low flame till the water is dried completely and rice is cooked.
- Heat oil/ghee in a pan and fry the cashews and raisins till it turns golden brown. In the same oil, fry the sliced onion, till it becomes golden brown.
- Garnish the cooked rice with fried onions, cashew and raisins.
- Serve with Parippu Curry (dal curry) or any veg or non veg curry of your choice and pappad. Curries that has a thick and rich gravy pairs well with ghee rice.
Notes
Kaima rice is a short grain rice, which is commonly used in Malabar area for making biriyani and ghee rice. You can use Basmati rice instead. The ideal qty of water to cook the rice is double the qty of rice. However kaima rice tends to cook faster, so I added only 1 3/4 cup of boiling water. If you want the rice to be separate and non sticky, I suggest you add 1 3/4 cup water first and add more boiling water, if required. Also, in some places people add mint and coriander leaves, lemon juice etc to ghee rice. You can add the leaves either at the end for garnishing or along with the onions. If you are using lemon juice, you can add around 1 tbsp of lemon juice along with salt and water.