Capsicum Channa Rice

I have a weakness for rice based dishes and they keep featuring often on our table and the blog! With almost a 100 rice dishes posted here, I am sure there is room for more. Just like Roti / paratha, there are millions of ways to whip up a delicious bowl of rice dish. Just keep changing the veggies, adding some lentil, a combo of veggies and lentil, changes in flavoring spices and spice mixes are more than enough to tempt me to prepare a rice dish.

And that was how, I was inspired to make this quick rice dish for Lil Angel’s lunch box.So this is for Blogging Marathon #46, week 2, Day 3 under Nuts and Legumes in the lunch box.

I almost always have cooked chickpeas in the freezer so this dish was a breeze to prepare. Also I have fallen in love with kalonji/Nigella seeds after I made the panchporan tharkari so I keep adding it to dishes.You can omit it and use mustard instead.

I used:

Cooked rice – 2 cups
Capsicum-1,small, chopped
Cooked chickpeas- 1/2 cup
Channa masala powder- 1 teapsoon
Kalonji-1 teaspoon
Onion-1,sliced
Salt to taste
Oil- 1 teraspoon
Coriander leaves to garnish

Heat oil in a pan and add kalonji. After a minute add the onion and capsicum.Saute till the onion is translucent,.Put in the chickpeas.
Add channa masala and sprinkle a little water if the mixture is too dry.Saute for a couple of minutes.Add salt and the cooked rice. Reduce the heat and mix well. Let the flavors blend for a couple of minutes.