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Lemon rice
Also known as chitranna · elumichai sadam · nimbu chawal · lemon sadam
Rice turned gold with turmeric and sharp with lemon, popped mustard seeds, curry leaves and peanuts through it. Bright and quick.
Typical serving
420 kcal
usually 330–530 kcal
 Protein | 9 g |
|---|---|
 Carbs | 60 g |
 Fat | 16 g |
Reference figures for a dish as it is commonly cooked — never a measurement of your plate. The range is the honest part: two kitchens make this differently. In the app, a photograph replaces the guess.
Before you start
- rice cooked and cooled first — an hour ahead, or yesterday's
Ingredients
Serves 2 · dimmer marks are storecupboard
- 140gbasmati rice
- 30gpeanuts
- 1 tbspoil
- 1 tbspchana dal and urad dal
- 15curry leaves
- 2green chillies
- 1lemon
- 1 tspmustard seeds and turmeric
- 1 pinchasafoetida
Method
5 steps
boil · 15mRice cooked with a little extra water so the grains stay separate, then spread out on a tray to cool. Hot rice turns to paste the moment a spoon goes through it.
finish · 5mIf it is not being eaten within the hour, get it cold quickly and into the fridge. Cooked rice left standing warm is the one real risk in this dish, and spreading it thin on a tray is what cools it fast enough.
fry · 8mPeanuts in the oil until they colour, then lifted out. Mustard seeds until they pop, then the dals until they go gold, then curry leaves, chilli, asafoetida and turmeric.
fold · 4mCold rice in and turned through with a light hand until every grain has taken the yellow. Salt at this point.
- finish · 2m
Off the heat entirely, then the lemon and the peanuts. Squeezed into a hot pan the juice cooks and goes bitter, and not doing that is the whole dish.
Worth knowing
South India’s travel food — lemon rice keeps without refrigeration, which made it the train journey and temple offering standard.
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