South Indian Curd Rice Recipe / How to Make Curd Rice / Dahi Chawal Tadka / Thayir Sadam / Restaurant Style Curd Rice.
Whenever I think of South Indian Cuisine, the first thought comes to my mind is dishes like Curd Rice, Lemon Rice, Tamarind Rice etc. Curd rice of South Idia tatses great. These are the signature rice dishes of South India. This is very easy to make on busy days, if you have enough curd in your kitchen. If I find enough curd in the refrigerator, I quickly mix up and make curd rice. It’s also a great dish to pack in the lunch boxes of your kids. All the ingredients we use for making this curd rice are very common and essential ones that are available in our kitchen. Curd Rice is very healthy and easy to make dish. It helps in digestion.
Hope you would love to have a look at other Biriyanies, Pulav and other Rice Dishes of my blog.
I have some fond memories when it comes to Curd Rice. I did my M. Ed (Master of Education) in the University of Madras, Chennai (), the capital city of Tamil Nadu. I was staying in a hostel for doing that course. My aunt, (dad’s sister) was also was there in Chennai at that time and in the week ends I used to go there to stay there. She used to make so many yummy dishes to make me happy. Then on Monday morning, to go to college, she used to wake me up in the morning saying about the tasty breakfast items she had prepared for me. I used to go to college by bus, most of the days alone. While coming back, so many of us would be there. We enjoyed those journeys so much. I think Chennai is the hottest place in India. During summer the city burns. Thank God that our college was surrounded by so many huge trees, the only solace from the scorching heat of the sun those days. During the break time of the lectures, we used to come to the ground floor and would have Ilaneer (tender coconut water) with a straw.
One fine morning my dad visited my college and he brought some chocolates to distribute to my hostel mates and class mates. We went for shopping that evening. That was the day I see for the first time in my life the facility of picking up things that we want by our own and putting those in to our trolley other than the shop keeper packing everything for us. That day I too came back with my dad to Thirumangalam, Madurai, Tamil Nadu, where he was working at that time. I stayed there for almost 2 weeks till my dad got time to relieve from his work and to come to my home in Trivandrum with me. We had been invited for dinner for the next day to the house of the then M.L.A of Thirumangalam, NSV Chitthan, as he was my Dad’s close friend. The time we stepped in to their house for the dinner, Shakuntala aunty, the wife of Chittan uncle, placed one long flower string with fresh jasmine flowers (kudamulla), on my hair, a custom of Tamilians who wear lot of flowers on their head. They are so crazy of flowers. Whenever you see people with string of flowers on their head, we can assume them as Tamilians!!
We were served with so many varieties of dishes that day for the dinner and I remember that Curd rice was one of those dishes. That was the day I had this curd rice for the first time. It was superb and the taste of that yummy curd rice remained in my taste buds for a long time. Is some part of India, people serve curd rice at the end of dinner or lunch.
Coming back to the recipe of Curd Rice. Onions, green chilly and all gives a wonderful aroma to this dish. Normally mango pickle or lemon pickle, papads or chutneys goes well with Curd rice. What else I want when I am so hungry!! Some people use only yogurt, but it makes the dish so thick.
Servings: 3
Ingredients for making Curd Rice:
2 cups of Rice
1 cups of thick plain Yogurt
1 cup of low fat Milk.
A handful of fresh and chopped Coriander Leaves.
Ingredients for Seasoning Curd Rice:
1 Green Chilly, slit
3 tbsp. Cooking Oil
1 tbsp. Black Mustard Seeds
1 tbsp. Chana Dal / Bengal Gram
1 tbsp. Urad Dal / Black Gram
1 tbsp. Chick Peas
¾ tsp. Cumin Seeds
3 Shallots or small onion
2 Dry Red Chillies
One pinch of Asafoetida or Hing
¼ tsp. Ginger powder
A few Curry leaves
Salt to taste.
How I made Curd Rice:
Wash and cook rice with salt and cool it completely. Add yogurt and milk to cold rice and mix it well. Keep it aside.
Heat oil in a pan. When the oil is hot enough, add chana dal and urad dal followed by dry red chilly. When it turns slightly brown colour, add mustard seeds. When it starts splutter, add cumin seeds. Next add Green Chilly and curry leaves. When the curry Leaves turn little crisp add asafoetida and ginger powder.
Switch off the stove and pour this seasoning to the yogurt rice mixture. Add milk, salt and coriander leaves. Mix it gently until combined well.
Serve Curd Rice at room temperature with mango pickle of lemon pickle.
My Recipe Notes on Yogurt Rice:
1. Use white raw rice (pachari) for making this curd rice. No other rice will be good for making curd rice.
2. You can use either freshly cooked rice or day old cooked rice for making this dish.
3. The rice has to be completely cold down before adding yogurt / curd.
4. I have used ginger powder here, if you want you can use ¼ ” piece of julienned fresh ginger.
5. Adding chick peas is completely optional. You can even use Cashew nuts.
6. Don’t miss adding urad dal, chana dal and curry leaves which give the dish splendid aroma. Don’t let dals to turn burn.
7. Adding 1 or 2 tbsp. of fresh cream would make the curd rice so yummy. (Optional)
8. Mix curd and rice and other ingredients just before serving. That means, once it is mixed, serve it immediately. It will get sour and thick. In that case adding little milk would make the curd rice lighter.
9. Curd rice gets thickened as it sits. Add little milk and loosen it before serving.
10. Be careful in adding salt at the end of the preparation as we have added salt in rice while cooking.
11. If you have overcooked rice, then the best option to make use of it is, to go for curd rice.
Happy Cooking.. Cheers.. Seena.
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തൈര് സാദം റെസിപ്പി.
Curd Rice.
Description
Here is a delicious, easy, flavourful and a comfort rice meal from the South Indian Cuisine, The Curd Rice.