Our innovative trading community created a lot of nourishing and delicious dishes using simple ingredients such as rice and a single type of dhal. They made dishes for breakfast and dinner using this technique. One such dish is thavila pindi. It is a flavoursome and a wholesome dish. Our P. A. R. household used to make this dish regularly and usually served it with hot Paapu chaaru (‘Paruppu rasam’ in Tamil).

Ingredients

1. Raw rice - 1 cup
2. Tuvar dhal – nearly ½ a cup
3. Ghee –1 tbsp (Optional)
4. Ingredients for Tempering
5. Mustard seed – 1 tsp
6. Dry red chilly (Broken into pieces) - 2 nos.
7. Curry leaves - a few
8. Oil – 1 tbsp
9. Peppercorn and cumin seeds – 1 tsp each
10. Urad dhal (Split) - ½ tsp
11. Bengal gram – ½ tsp

Procedure

Break the rice into granules (Resembling semolina) using a mixer. Powder the tuvar dhal and mix it with the rice granules. Heat the oil in a deep pan. Add the mustard seeds and once it starts to pop, add other ingredients one by one. Wait until the dhal turns brown.

Measure 3 ½ cups (The same cup which was used to measure rice & tuvar dhal) of water and pour it into the pan. Allow it to boil and then add the required amount of salt and the rice-dhal mixture. Stir it constantly and add ghee. Once the mixture thickens, reduce the flame and keep stirring occasionally. Stir for about 30 – 35 minutes. Check to make sure that the rice granules are cooked completely.

Relish it hot with paruppu rasam!

Variation

Thavila billalu is prepared in the same manner as thavila pindi, until the stage where the mixture thickens. Take it out of the pan and leave it to cool. Make small balls out of the mixture and pat it on the dosa tawa.

Sprinkle few drops of oil and cover it to cook in a low flame. Flip it over for the other side of the dosa to get cooked.

Hot, crispy, thavila billalu with miriam (Spicy garlic red chilly chutney) makes one go crazy!