Manna from the mud - Daliya!

No, I’m not transforming my venture-blog into a food-blog!

Despite a rather underwhelming 2013, I am just not ready to give up chasing pavements and this post is but a tasty interlude in an otherwise bland biz-talk that still is my lifeline to a new tomorrow.

Daliya – Manna from the Mud

My hunt for a perfect vegetarian breakfast meal brought me to this amazingly versatile north Indian option called Daliya, which is nothing but broken whole-wheat grain & very likely the more nutritious cousin of the popular Bulgur, which is semi-polished and parboiled durum wheat.

To my south-Indian sensibilities, breakfast & sweet don’t go together and thus porridge with milk and sugar wasn’t an option at all. I also wanted vegetables & legumes to be more than a decoration in my breakfast & hence the ubiquitous Upma or Khichdi too didn’t present themselves as the true alternatives, thus inspiring me to come up with my own multiple variants of daliya, which for the sake of this post I christened “Daliya Quick Meals” (DQM), that now enable me to have this meal for breakfast three times a week without getting bored once.

So overwhelmed I am with the sheer convenience of this nutritious preparation, that I decided to turn a daliya-messiah and share my most prized recipe through this blog;

Daliya Quick Meal – Thai variant

Serves – 2

Ingredients:

The core-elements of DQM are Daliya (understandably so..) & Split Moong dal (not too obviously so…) and these two ingredients hence are non-negotiable.

The vegetables suggested are based on ease of availability & on mutual compatibility and last but not the least, for visual appeal. 

Finally, since this is a ‘Thai’ variant, I wouldn’t however compromise on using coconut, red chilly & lemon grass.

• Daliya – 100g ~1 small stainless steel tumbler (SST) (shown in pictures)
• Split green gram (split moong dal) – 50g ~1/2 SST
• Carrot – 1, peeled & cut into 1in pieces (optional & can be replaced with Zucchini too.. the pictures don’t show carrot btw..)
• Tomato – 2, deseeded, sliced into crescents
• Green Beans – 6, cut into 1in pieces
• Corn Kernel (Maize) – quarter cup
• Garlic cloves – 6, peeled & whole
• Red chilli flakes - ½ tsp.
• Jaggery (Gurh) – a small piece/ grated, 1 tsp.
• Turmeric powder (Haldi) – ¼ tsp.
• Coconut kernel (Fresh/ dried) Small piece, grated OR Coconut milk – I tbsp.
• Lemon Grass (dried) – ½ tsp. OR Lemon Grass Oil – 10 drops
• Peanut powder – 1 tsp., optional
• Almonds – 6, chopped, optional
• Oil (sunflower/ rice bran/ olive) – 2 tsp.
• Salt to taste

Preparation:

This is the best & easiest part!

Put all ingredients in a microwavable ceramic or glass bowl (~Borosil cookware), add water (4 times the measure of daliya + dal, which in this recipe translates as 6 SST), cover it with a microwavable glass top and microwave for 14 minutes. When cooking larger quantities the cooking time should be increased accordingly - Once cooked, let it idle for 10 minutes. 

Mix well and serve hot with half a cup of curd/ yogurt.

Preparation time
-> 15 minutes (not counting microwave time)

Eating time
-> 10 minutes (hey, it's break'fast'...)

Quick, nutritious & tasty – give it a try!

Wishing all a Happy, Healthy & Successful 2014!