చిత్రాన్నం / నిమ్మకాయ పులిహోర- Chitraannam /Nimmakaaya Pulihora- Lemon rice

Serves: Three. Preparation time: 45 minutes including preparing all the vegetables, assembling the required quantities of ingredients (rice cooks simultaneously on another flame), cooking and mixing together.

Ingredients:

Boil 2 cups of rice and let it cool. Use less water than regular so that the rice grains are not too moist, they should be grainy but well cooked (Manju pinni advises to sprinkle a few drops of oil so that the grains don't stick together as they cool.).

2 large lemons

Salt to taste

½ tsp sugar

For tempering:

1.5 tsp Mustard seeds

1tsp turmeric

2 tbsp oil

2 tbsp Senaga pappu (Chana daal)

2 tbsp Minnappappu

5 Dry Red Chillies (or to taste)

0.5 tsp Asafoetida

Few Curry leaves

0.5 tsp Sesame seeds (Til/Nuvvulu)

2 tbsp Peanuts (or to taste)

Broken Cashwenuts

Fine chopped Green chillies to taste

(Peanuts and cashewnuts are pre-roasted.)

The following are needed just to add various colours, so a small fistful of each would do:

Green peas- halved

Grated/fine chopped carrot

Fine chopped capsicum

Fine chopped red bell pepper, yellow bell pepper.

Grated Green mango

Grated coconut
Grated ginger

(Vegetables mentioned above are only for embellishing the dish with colour & flavour, not for dominating it with an altered taste, so please be careful about the quantities!)

Method:

Place the salt and sugar in a bowl. Squeeze out the juice from the lemons into this bowl (Lemon juice turns bitter if left exposed- hence, the addition of salt-sugar). Set aside.

Heat oil in pan. Add minnappappu, dry red chillies, senaga pappu. When minnappappu is slightly browned, add mustard seeds. When they crackle, add turmeric, asafoetida, sesame seeds, peanuts, cashewnuts, green chillies, curry leaves and the fine chopped colourful vegetables.

Cook for a minute or two, turn off the heat (Carrots/Capsicums/Mango/Coconut are only partially cooked so that they don't lose their colour and vitamins). 

Add the cooked rice into this pan and mix well, pour in the lemon juice that was set aside earlier. Mix well.

Precautions/Variations:
I used pre-roasted peanuts & cashewnuts, hence I added them just before adding vegetables. However, if using raw nuts, they should be added along with the minappappu+red chillies+senagapappu so that they have time to brown.

More lemons may be needed, I used very large juicy ones.

Perhaps I wasn't perfect with the amounts of ingredients, I revised them after my dish turned out bland, so those of you who like it spicy, be generous with the spices ;-)

Culture:
Chitraannam: Chitra+Annam: means "Coloured rice" in Samskrtam/Telugu. It is named thus owing to the many colours present in this dish.
If we didn't add  the many colourful bits of vegetables, it can also be called Nimmakaya pulihora.


Trivia:

This is my mom's trademark dish, she always makes this during any community lunch, for poojas, vanabhojanams, guests at home, et al. And try as I might, I can never replicate her taste :-O