Ogarnay Anna | Seasoned Rice

We are starting the third week of Blogging Marathon #25th edition today. I have still not come out of the excitement of meeting the BM members last week. I will be sharing the experiences and clicks shortly in my space.

Now coming to today’s post, the theme that I chose for this week is to prepare dishes starting with a particular set of alphabets. I chose O,R,V. I was excited as soon as I saw this combo of alphabets,especially the ‘O’ .

While collecting recipes starting with ‘O’, I had Oats, Olives,Okra,Onion,Oranges etc. But I wanted some thing unique and this being my favorite, decided to dump that list and go on with this one.

There are some recipes that are extremely simple to prepare and that too prepared when there is nothing else as an option for dinner yet you need something tasty and filling.Those are the times, we break our heads [and pots and pans] to get something on the table.

But obviously my mom and grand mom did not under go this stress.They have been making this for a long long time and now I have requested mom to make it for me when I visited her some time ago.

As I mentioned earlier,this is one of my favourites and I was eager to share this as there are not many unique recipes with ‘O’ that I am comfortable preparing and this one also happens to be a sort of ‘our family’ recipe though I am sure there are several versions for each household.

Ogarnay in Kannada [a south Indian Language] means seasoning. So Ogarnay anna literally means seasoned rice. By seasonings its not just the usual mustard,cumin and dals. Its a whole range of crunchy and crispy stuffs that make the rice very flavorful.

It tastes great on its own or can be paired with a sambar / tangy stew.

Here is what goes into it……

To the steamed rice the following are added…

• Fried Sundried chillies / More Milagai
• Your choice of sun dried crisps [Mom added Avalakki Sondigay/Poha crisps
• Grilled pappad
• Roasted nuts mainly – cashews and ground nuts
• Along with the regular seasonings of mustard, cumin, urad dhal, gram dal,a pinch of asafoetida and curry leaves.
• You can use any sundried crisp / vathal / vadagam of your choice

There are no measurements for these ingredients. Just add what ever is available and the quantity is up to you.

Pappad is grilled.Sun dried chillies and sun dried crisps are fried in oil separately.The seasoning and frying of nuts is done separately.The seasoning and nuts are poured over hot steamed rice. The pappad, sun dried chillies and crisps are crushed and added to the rice.Check for salt and add accordingly. Add a little more ghee if required.This increase the calories flavor.

Note :

• Ghee should be used for seasoning the mustard/cumin etc. Oil does not give the desired flavor.
• Similarly nuts to be fried in ghee.
• Pappad must not be fried in oil or roasted in the microwave. It has to be grilled or roasted on live charcoal/ open flame.
• Since we are not adding chillies, the heat and spice is got from the sun dried chillies. Try not to omit this. In case it is not available, use red chillies while seasoning the mustard etc.
• This is not a complete meal.Its just a portion of the meal and is usually served as the first dish of the course.

Tomorrow, I will be back with a recipe that is very different and is one that kids will love and it starts with ‘R’. Keep guessing….