We enjoyed this dish with a side of lightly steamed broccoli and carrots, which were a nice sweet side with the flavorful stew. Before settling with my version I was happy to find Nupur’s lovely and thorough blog post about khichdi, and closely read through quite a few kitchari recipes. Heikki loved this dish and commented that kids would probably enjoy it as well – before he even knew that it’s often the first solid food introduced to children in India!

This is what I used (serves 3-4):

• 2 dl brown basmati rice, soaked for 2 hours (unsoaked cooks longer)
• 1 and 1/2 dl green  mung beans, soaked overnight
• 1 or 2 tablespoons canola oil
• 2 tablespoons of chopped fresh ginger
• 1 teaspoon fennel seeds, ground
• 1 teaspoon black mustard seeds
• 2 teaspoons each: ground coriander and cumin
• 1 and 1/2 teaspoon turmeric
• pinch of asafoetida
• 6-8 dl water, and maybe more as needed
• sea salt to taste
• 2 tablespoons of vegan margarine
• 1 tablespoon of tamarind paste or lemon juice

I first heated the oil and fried the mustard seeds until they started to pop. Then I added the chopped ginger and fried it for a few seconds, followed with fennel, coriander, cumin and asafoetida, which I fried just until fragrant, being careful not to burn. Now, I added the rice and the beans along with about 6 dl of hot water and the turmeric, brought to boil, then lowered the heat and let the stew simmer, covered, for about 30 minutes. I added a little bit of water as needed, but not too much – I didn’t want this to be a soupy stew.

When the rice was soft, I removed the pot from heat, and added in the margarine, tamarind paste, and salt to taste. I stirred the stew briskly with a ladle for a few minutes to mash some of the beans and make it a bit creamier, and then it was ready to be served.

Most tandoori sauces seem to have red food coloring, and that’s not something I wanted to include in this recipe. I added a chopped beet to get a little bit of that red tandoori color, but my endeavor wasn’t a complete success: the result was unevenly colored, partly bright fuchsia, partly yellowish. Now that I think of it, I could have added the beets in when I was pre-cooking the rice, and the color would’ve most likely come out prettier! Another option would’ve been to add some beet juice in the sauce, so that the tofu would’ve had a pink color as well.

This recipe makes a lot of food, enough for about 4 hungry or 6 not quite as hungry eaters. I like to make a larger batch of food once I heat up the oven, so there’s leftovers for the days to come.

The Tandoori Sauce (adapted from this recipe):

• 5 garlic cloves
• 5 cm peeled ginger
• 3 shallots (or 1 regular onion)
• 1 small red chili with seeds
• 3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
• 2 tablespoons canola oil
• 2 tablespoons muscovado sugar
• 1 and 1/2 dl plain soy yogurt
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons ground coriander
• 1 and 1/2 teaspoons paprika powder
• 1 teaspoon each: ground cumin and turmeric
• 1/2 teaspoon each: cinnamon and freshly ground black pepper
• 1/4 teaspoon each: freshly grated nutmeg, ground cardamom, and ground clove

Also Used:

• 500 g firm tofu, pressed and cubed
• 2 potatoes, scrubbed and cubed
• 1 beet, peeled and finely cubed
• 4 dl brown basmati rice
• 1 bay leaf
• water to cook rice in
• 4 dl vegetable stock

Three and a half hours before we planned to have dinner we started the preparations. I blended all the tandoori sauce ingredients with our immersion blender until smooth. Heikki pressed and cubed the tofu, and I mixed it with the sauce and put it in the fridge to marinate for two hours (overnight would be even better). I rinsed the rice at this point and let it soak in fresh water for two hours as well.

An hour and a half before dinner time I set the oven to 175 degrees Celsius. Then I rinsed the rice, cooked it in ample water with the bay leaf for about 20 minutes, and drained it.  While the rice was cooking, I cubed the potatoes and the beet. When everything was prepped, I just mixed it all together in a large baking dish – tofu with the tandoori sauce, pre-cooked rice, potatoes, beets, and the veggie stock. Now, I covered the dish with a lid, and baked it for one hour.

Brown rice takes a long time to cook, but it results in a much more satisfying dish than white arborio rice commonly used for risotto. Brown rice isn’t as starchy as arborio rice at first, but it will get creamy after about an hour’s cooking. I’ve heard about brown arborio rice as well, but I don’t think it’s available in Helsinki. So, I didn’t feel like a heretic when I poured most of the cooking broth in the pan right at the beginning and covered the pan – I just let the brown rice reach the starchy stage this way, and once it was almost done, I started stirring in order to produce a nice and creamy risotto.

My Risotto Ingredients (serves 2-3):

• 2 and 1/2 dl short grain brown rice (soaked for 2 hours)
• 2 medium beets, peeled and chopped
• 1 small parsley root, scrubbed and chopped
• 3 spring onions, sliced
• 1 and 1/2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 dl flat leaf parsley (lightly packed), chopped

The Cooking Broth:

• 5 dl mild vegetable stock
• 1/2 dl mirin (or white wine)
• 2 teaspoons soy sauce
• (additional water/stock to add later)

The Lemony Tofu:

• 200 g firm tofu
• juice of 1 small lemon
• 1 large clove of garlic
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon sugar

First, I placed the rice in a small bowl and covered it with water, and let it soak for about 2 hours. Then I mashed the tofu with a fork and combined it with the lemon juice, garlic, sugar and salt. I placed it in the fridge to marinate while I was cooking the risotto.

Then I made the cooking broth by combining the hot veggie stock with mirin and soy sauce.

I heated the olive oil in a frying pan and fried the spring onions until soft, then added the root parsley and the beet cubes and fried for a few more minutes. I rinseed the rice and fried it for a few minutes as well, and then started adding the liquid to the pan.

Pretty soon I realized that I’d have to hang around the stove for a very long time if I was to make the risotto correctly, and it was lunch time after all. So I decided to make things easier and added all the broth in the pan at once, lowered the heat to a light simmer, covered the pan, and set the kitchen alarm to 30 minutes.

After the first half an hour had elapsed I checked the risotto every now and then, stirring each time, until it started to thicken. I needed to add some more water toward the end of the cooking, maybe 3-4 dl altogether – it all depends on how runny you want your risotto. During the last 15 minutes I started stirring the risotto continuously while adding a little bit of liquid to get the consistency I wanted, and it was ready after about an hour and a half of total cooking time.

When the rice was soft and creamy, I stirred in about two thirds of the lemony tofu and the chopped parsley, and saved the rest for garnishing purposes. I also crackled some black pepper over my lunch portion.

Here’s my scrubbed parsley root, alongside some of its leaves.

We had the leftovers for lunch on the next day, and the flavors had blended a little more than I’d have liked. So in case of leftovers I recommend storing the lemony tofu and the risotto in separate containers, and only combining them right before serving!

We made Nasi Lemak one Sunday afternoon – here’s what we used:

Nasi Lemak (two portions)

• 2 and 1/2 dl (1 cup) rice
• 2 and 1/2 dl coconut milk
• 2 and 1/2 dl water
• 1-2 tablespoons crushed ginger
• 1 bay leaf
• salt to taste
• sambal oelek to taste (or some other salty chili paste)

We made this in a rice cooker, which is super easy: We just put all the ingredients in our rice cooker except the sambal oelek, turned it on, and about half an hour later it was ready. We removed the bay leaf, and garnished it with sambal.

In case you don’t have a rice cooker, here are the instructions on how to make it in a regular cooking pot:

Put all the ingredients in a kettle except the sambal oelek. Don’t go overboard with the salt since you’re going to eat it with sambal, which is super salty! Bring to boil, and let it simmer until the rice has absorbed almost all the liquid – maybe 20 minutes or so. Turn the heat low, or with an electric stove, off, and let the rice steam for an additional 10 or 15 minutes. Keep the lid on the kettle all the time, except when checking if the liquid’s all absorbed, of course. Remove the bay leaf from the kettle, and serve. Garnish the rice with sambal oelek.

Possible variations:

• Use two cups of coconut milk instead of one cup water and one cup of coconut milk
• Instead of ginger, use one pandan leaf.

We had our Nasi Lemak (clockwise from bottom right) with stir-fried morning glory, vegan ikan bilis, cucumber, and soy strips marinated in dill and chili. The first three are traditional dishes to have with Nasi Lemak, the fourth isn’t, but all of them tasted great with it, we thought.