South Indian Coconut Rice - Thengai Sadam

A savory, lightly spiced and delicious Coconut Rice made the South Indian way. This Thengai Sadam is easy to make and is perfect for a weeknight meal.

Course Main

Cuisine Indian - South Indian

Prep Time 5

Cook Time 5

Time to cook rice and to cool it 30

Total Time 45

Servings servings

Calories 330kcal

Author Manju

Ingredients

1 cup uncooked rice I used Ponni rice
2 cups water to cook the rice
2 ½ tablespoon coconut oil divided
1 teaspoon chana dal
1 tsp urad dal
3-4 dried red chillies
8-10 curry leaves
½ cup cashews
1 cup grated coconut freshly frozen is fine or grate some fresh coconut
½ teaspoon hing / asafetida
1 ½ teaspoon salt

Instructions

Cook the rice

To cook the rice, you can use a pressure cooker, rice cooker, an Instant Pot or you can cook it in a saucepan on the stove top. Any method that you use to cook rice regularly will work. It is ok if the rice is a little undercooked, we don't want it overcooked and mushy.
1 cup uncooked rice, 2 cups water
Once cooked, spread it out on a large plate or a sheet pan and allow it to cool down to room temperature. You can add a tablespoon of any neutral oil like avocado oil to keep the rice grain separate. Cooling it down completely is necessary to make the rice non sticky or mushy when mixing it with the other ingredients. This is where leftover rice works wonders.
2 ½ tablespoon coconut oil

Tempering

For the tempered seasoning, heat coconut oil in a pan large enough to hold all of the cooked rice as well. Keep it on medium heat. Add the chana dal / bengal gram dal, urad dal and the cashews first. Once they start to become golden brown, add the dried red chillies, green chilies (if using), curry leaves and hing. Give it a quick stir.
2 ½ tablespoon coconut oil, 1 teaspoon chana dal, 1 teaspoon urad dal, 3-4 dried red chillies, 8-10 curry leaves, ½ cup cashews, ½ teaspoon hing / asafetida

Roasting the coconut

Now add in the fresh grated coconut and while keeping the pan at low heat or low to medium heat, roast the coconut along with the other flavorings, till the coconut becomes golden brown along the edges and starts to turn a little crispy. Turn off the heat.
1 cup grated coconut

Adding the rice

Add salt and the cooked rice and mix it in gently. Check for salt and adjust if necessary.
1 ½ teaspoon salt
Some add chopped cilantro / coriander leaves at this stage, but I usually leave it out.

Notes

1 cup of raw ponni rice (or most other rice also) yields about 3-4 cups of cooked rice. Since the recipe measurement is for 1 cup of raw rice, you may need to adjust the salt and chillies according to taste. Less is always better, you can add more later. This recipe is generally forgiving, so you won't really have to make a lot of adjustments anyway.
As I said before, leftover rice is ideal to make this recipe. Making rice ahead is especially helpful when you don't have much time to cook and cool down the rice, like when you are making this to pack in a lunch box.
Instead of rice, you can use millets or even quinoa in this recipe. Make 3 ½ cups cooked grains to be used in this recipe. I will not use brown rice in this recipe though. I think it is too dense and the flavors in this recipe are too subtle to handle that denseness.

Nutrition