Bisi bele bath

Bisi bele bath was a speciality dish prepared in the kitchen of Mysore palace a few centuries ago, and it is still a popular rice dish in Karnataka. It is a hearty meal prepared by stewing rice, lentils & vegetables along with a spice powder in tamarind juice just like sambar sadam, or kadamba sadam or kootanchoru, a counterpart in Tamil cuisine. This Karnataka specialty dish is made flavourful by adding fresh peanuts along with other vegetables, a unique flavorful spice powder made with the distinctly aromatic Marati moggu (kapok bud) as the star ingredient, and also by adding the spices tempered in ghee. It is divine when spicy bisi bele bath is served hot (as the name [bisi means hot] suggests) & viscid and hence perfect meal for the cold winter nights.

Bisi bele bath is usually garnished with crispy kara boondhi (fried chickpea flour pearls) and served with raitha (yogurt salad) & appalam (fried lentil disc), but some may like to serve with stir-fried potatoes or potato chips.

Generally bisibele bath is prepared as a one-pot meal by cooking all the ingredients using pressure cooker or InstantPot, but I prefer to cook each component separately and mix them at the end as it is essential to keep the rice & lentils mixture viscous and the vegetables chunky. So I have cooked the rice & lentils separately in a pressure cooker, steamed the vegetables, and saute shallots in ghee to make this dish more palatable. Now I have prepared bisi bele bath using bamboo rice to make it even more special and nourishing, and the recipe is as below.

Bisi bele bath Recipe:

Ingredients:

Main ingredients:
Rice (I used bamboo rice/ moongil arisi)	1 cup
Red gram (toor dal/ thuvaram paruppu)	1/2 cup
A lemon sized tamarind
Jaggery	1 tsp
Turmeric powder	1/4 tsp
Asafoetida powder	1/4 tsp
Salt	1 and 1/2 tsp

Vegetables: (cut into medium sized chunks as shown below)

Carrot

Broad beans (avarakkai)

Potato

Fresh pigeon peas (thuvarai)

Green beans

Raw mango

Raw banana

Dried peanuts (soaked for 4 hours)

Shallots (sambar vengayam)

Ingredients for the spice powder: *

3 Byadagi Chillies***

4 Salem chillies

Black gram (ulundham paruppu)

Bengal gram (kadalai paruppu)

Malli vidhai (dhania)

Black pepper

Fenugreek seeds

Cumin seeds

Poppy seeds

Dry coconut

2 cardamom

2 cloves**

1/2″ cinnamon**

1 Marati moggu

*Since all the ingredients are used mainly for flavor, we can just use them in very small quantities so that the entire spice powder can be used in one go.

** Some, esp. Tamilians, may not enjoy the strong flavors of spices in this rice dish somewhat similar to sambar sadam, so cinnamon & cloves may be considered optional but I highly recommend the mildly-flavored Marati moggu that lends an authentic flavour.

***I used Byadagi chillies for deep red color & flavor and Salem chillies for heat.

For tempering:
Ghee	2 tbsp
Mustard seeds	1 tsp
Cashew nuts	as desired
Curry leaves	2/3 sprigs

Mise en place:

Cooking rice & lentils:

I soaked the bamboo rice for 3 hours, pulsed for few seconds for the ease of cooking, and then pressure cooked rice & lentils separately.

Steaming vegetables:

Bisi bele bath masala:

First I dry roasted all the tiny ingredients (to prevent them getting burnt) along with cardamom, cinnamon, cloves & Marati moggu, and then roast the remaining ingredients (except dry coconut) in little oil. Finally all the spices are ground into a powder.

Cooking bisi bele bath:

• Heat a large heavy bottom pan with 1 tbsp of ghee in medium flame.
• Add shallots and saute for 2-3 minutes.
• Add turmeric powder & asafoetida powder and fry for 2-3 seconds.
• Pour tamarind juice (1 to 1.5 Ltr), bring it to a boil in high flame, and cook the shallots in medium flame by keeping the lid on.
• When shallots are cooked, add mashed rice & lentils and stir in until combined.
• Add steamed vegetables, spice powder, salt & jaggery, and mix them gently.
• Keep the pan covered in low flame for few minutes allowing the aroma of spice powder nicely infused with the mixture.
• Now prepare the tempering with remaining ghee and add into bisi bele bath.
• Serve immediately after garnishing with chopped coriander leaves & kara boondhi.

Tips & Tweaks:

• We can make this dish simple by using just shallots alone (ie. with fewer or without vegetables).
• Generally it is prepared with carrot, beans, potato , shallots and fresh peas, but I like to add as many vegetables as possible. We can make this dish wholesome & delicious by adding drumsticks, raw mango, raw banana, broad beans, capsicum, sweet potato & other tubers, etc.
• I prepared bisibele bath by mixing various components mainly to get the right texture, but if we cook all the components together in one shot using pressure cooker, we need to be little careful with the amount of heat & cooking time to prevent it getting stuck to the bottom of cooker.