Coconut rice is temple food and lunchbox food at once, and it lives or dies on one instruction: do not brown the coconut.
Fry it gently in coconut oil until it just turns sandy in colour and no further. Toasted coconut smells wonderful in the pan and makes the finished rice taste burnt rather than sweet, and there is no fixing it once it has gone. Everything else is a straightforward tempering of mustard seeds, two dals, dried chilli and cashews, folded through cooled rice.
Cover it and let it sit ten minutes before serving. It settles.
Everything you need for this recipe is on the shelf at One Place Bazaar, delivered to all 32 counties. See the rest of our Ganesh Chaturthi recipes.
