Keerai Sadham (Spinach Rice)

Aah, finally a warm weather this week. It was good to experience a quick winter thaw and get a glimpse of spring in mid-february. As soon as the calendar hits March, my mind automatically resets to Spring and its hard for me to put up with snow and sub-zero temps after that. I enter into what I call as "rejection mode". This week was very refreshing, but it was a busy week at work and I actually couldn't really enjoy the weather much. Most of this week, I was coming up with some quick dinner ideas and hardly had any time to cook anything elaborate.

I'm a spinach lover and due to the abundant availability of organic spinach consistently in my refregirator, I usually keep trying different recipes with spinach. I miss all those varieties of greens that I've enjoyed while growing up. After moving here, its just one spinach always, although after a long time I saw murungai keerai (drumstick leaves) in my local Indian grocery. I got this recipe from my mom at a perfect time while I was already looking for a quick recipe with spinach. This is an all-in-one recipe you can just eat without any accompaniments - may be with raita or pickle if needed. My daughter liked it too and I'm thrilled to add yet another delicious spinach dish to my lunch menu. If you are looking for a new spinach recipe, you are in for a treat.

Ingredients

• Chopped Spinach - 2 cups
• Uncooked Rice - 1 cup
• Tuvar dal - 1/2 cup
• Sambar powder - 1 tbsp
• Turmeric powder - 1/2 tsp
• Tamarind water - 1 cup
• Pearl onions - 10 (or 1 medium onion)
• Cumin seeds - 2 tsp
• Shredded Coconut - 2 tbsp
• Mustard seeds - 1 tsp
• Urad Dal - 1 tsp
• Ghee - 2 tbsp

Procedure

• Pressure cook the rice, dal, spinach, sambar powder, turmeric powder together.
• Grind onions, cumin seeds and coconut together to a coarse paste (no need to be fine).
• Heat a pan and add the tamarind water, 1 cup of water, salt and let it boil.
• Add the paste. Mix, cover and boil in medium heat for about 10 mins until the sauce thickens a bit to a kuzhambu consistency.
• Add this to the pressure cooked ingredients and mix gently.
• Finally, heat ghee in a pan separately, season with mustard seeds and urad dal. Add this to the rice mixture and mix gently.

Serve hot. I enjoyed with papad!