Today I am sharing a simple one-pot rice recipe that comes together very quickly. So you can see that I am still on a pepper high with another pepper flavored recipe, following Mushroom Pepper Fry. Pepper Rice or Milagu Sadam is amazingly flavorful and mildly spiced with roasted, powdered black pepper. Over the weekend when I planned to use the fresh mushrooms to make the side dish, my original plan was to make Jeera Rice. While it would have been mild and just perfect with a spicy peppery side dish made with mushrooms, I wanted something different and ended up making Pepper Rice.
Growing up Basmati rice was a rare commodity in our middle-class kitchens and if anything, we got a KG once every two or three months. All variety rice recipes were made with regular cooking rice and as far as I can remember Amma made Biriyani also with regular Ponni raw rice. These days, Basmati rice is easily available and cost is not a concern thankfully. Since it pictures well, I end up using it for my variety rice recipes. But I am sure this Pepper Rice will just be as delicious even with Sona Masoori or any other raw rice variant.
In this Pepper Rice recipe, I have used part ghee and part oil to fry the spices and it lends a mild beautiful flavor to the rice as well. It is very easy to make, since all you have got to do is make a South Indian tempering. I added onions to my milagu sadam as I love the flavor of lightly golden fried onions, but it is totally fine to skip them. Instead of using store-bought pepper powder, I dry roasted black pepper and coarsely powdered them in a blender. With fresh curry leaves and roasted cashews, it is both fragrant and delicious. Only thing to keep in mind is that the rice has to be cooked and cooled down properly. If you have leftover rice, there is no simpler variety rice recipe than this!
📖 Recipe
In a large pan, heat oil + ghee. Add mustard seeds, cumin seeds, urad dal and cashews.
As the cashews and dal begin to brown, mustard and cumin seeds splutter, add fresh curry leaves. Fry for a few seconds and add asafoetida.
Now add finely chopped onions and fry until light brown on low flame. Add salt as needed.
Meanwhile dry roast peppercorns for 3-5 mins on low flame and once cooled down, grind into a coarse powder. You could also use a mortar-pestle to powder them.
Add cooked, cooled down rice into the pan and the powdered black pepper. If your rice is not cooked with salt, add salt for rice now.
Mix well and remove from heat after a minute.
Serve hot with Mushroom Pepper Fry or any side dish of your choice.
You can use any type of cooked rice, it works best when the rice is completely cooled down. Adjust spices as per preference.
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