This dish is made with lentils that are roasted and ground and added to cooked rice along with toasted fresh shredded coconut.

When I used to live in Southern part of India, I use to enjoy eating the various dishes prepared with Coconut. The various dishes are prepared using rice in various forms – rice with lentils used to make various dishes, rice with coconut, rice with tomatoes etc. Today, I have taken a dish from an excellent cookbook called  The Turmeric Trail: Recipes and Memories from an Indian Childhood. It is by Raghavan Iyer, whom I had the pleasure of meeting when I was living in Minneapolis.

You can usually buy either frozen shredded coconut or buy a coconut and shred it yourself. I prefer the first approach as it is a tedious process shredding it yourself.

This dish also uses different varieties of lentils which adds a crunchy texture to the dish. The one on the left is called Urad Dal (split and hulled black lentils) and the one on the right is Chana Dal (yellow split peas).

…continue reading Basmati Rice with Toasted Coconut