Jeera Rice (Cumin Rice)

Prepare this recipe using brown rice and eat it with curry and raita.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup of brown rice
• 1 tbsp cumin seeds (jeera)
• ¼ tsp asafetida (optional)
• ½” piece of cinnamon stick
• 2 cloves
• 2 green cardamoms
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 tbsp lemon juice
• 3 tbsp ghee or butter
• Salt to taste
• 1 tbsp chopped coriander leaves
• 1 tbsp roasted cashew nut pieces

Method:

• Soak rice for 4-5 hrs.
• Heat ghee in a thick bottom pan or pressure cooker. Add bay leaf, cinnamon stick, cloves, cardamoms and cumin seeds. Fry for few seconds.
• Add asafetida and then soaked rice. Stir fry for another couple of minutes.
• Finally add 3 cups of water when cooking in the pan. Rice needs less water when cooked in pressure cooker. Usually the amount of water is just double the amount of rice.
• Add salt and lime juice, mix well. Cook till the rice is done.
• Garnish with nuts and chopped coriander.
• Eat with any dal/curry/raita/pickle/chutney.

Do You Know?

The seeds of the rice plant are first milled using a rice huller to remove the chaff (the outer husks of the grain). At this point in the process, the product is called brown rice.

In some countries parboiled rice is popular. It is also known as Minute rice or easy-cook rice.

Brown rice is subjected to a steaming or parboiling process to produce parboiled rice. This causes nutrients from the outer husk to move into the grain itself. The parboil process causes a gelatinization of the starch in the grains. The grains become less brittle, and the color of the milled grain changes from white to yellow. The rice is then dried, and can then be milled as usual or used as brown rice.

Milled parboiled rice is nutritionally superior to standard milled rice. Parboiled rice has an additional benefit in that it does not stick to the pan during cooking as happens when cooking regular white rice.