Mugu Baiy

Mugu Baiy or lentil rice works really well with dry curries like bashi hiki riha, aluvi riha, or valhomas hiki riha. 

Serves: 2-3

Ingredients:

• 1 cup uncooked rice
• 1/3 cup yellow lentils
• 1 medium onion
• 2 tbsp. ghee
• 1/3 tsp. whole cumin seeds
• 2 ½ cups water
• 2/3 tsp. salt (or to taste)

Instructions:

1. Wash the rice and lentils and set them aside; you don’t need to wash them separately.
2. Slice the onion thinly and evenly.
3. Heat a tablespoon of ghee in a pot. Once the ghee melts, add the onions.
4. Cook the onions until they turn reddish brown, like how we cook them for biryanis.
5. Remove the onions from the pot and set aside. We placed ours on some tissues to remove the excess ghee.
6. Add another tablespoon of ghee to the same pot and when it melts, add the cumin seeds and give it a good mix. Let it cook for around 30 seconds.
7. Now add the rice and lentils. Keep the heat low, and while stirring frequently, cook the mixture until the lentils and the rice take on a slight reddish tint. For us this took something like 20 minutes.
8. Add the water and the salt, mix everything up, set the heat to medium and put the lid on. Bring the mixture to a boil and after that, reduce the heat and let it cook until all the water evaporates.
9. Mix in the fried onions and that’s it.