PlainGeets

I love lemons. From nimbu panu to Limoncello, from nimbu ka acchar to lemon tart, give me a lemon-based thing to eat or drink, and you will never find me saying no! It goes without saying that lemons are a staple in my kitchen – as a principal ingredient to marinate chicken, to squirt over food, add in cocktails…and even as a cleaning agent. 🍋

Given my ardency for the citrus fruit, it should come as no surprise that I love lemon rice, even though I was introduced to it rather late in life. A staple recipe in South-Indian kitchens, chitrannna or nimmakaya pulihora, is nothing but rice infused with a blend of tempered spices and fragrant curry leaves. It became a regular weekend treat in 2016 when I was had not one, but two weekend batches. There were 4 others like me, who had signed away their weekends, and I found myself enjoying real staffroom exchanges for the first time in my career. Instead of leaving immediately after class, I was heading to the staffroom to share my lunch dabba with my colleagues (and gossip about students and life in general). Lemon rice became a regular feature of those weekend lunches thanks to a colleague who would make it especially for the two non-South Indians who had discovered the joys of the dish!

Strangely I never tried to make lemon rice at home, even though I loved it. It was one of those dishes that I enjoyed when made by someone else…till this year, when we picked up a few packets of lemon rice paste as one of those quick meal solutions, and it became one of our favourite go-to weekday meals.

It goes without saying that we weren’t very true to the recipe, as I discovered when I sent a photo to a Tamilian friend.

But then blasphemous cooking is my trademark. I am constantly tweaking recipes, and using ingredients meant for one recipe in something completely different, so why not lemon rice?

Last night’s blasphemy (for want of a better word), started with a desire to have something different, and packed with flavour. I already had chicken marinated in lemon sitting in the fridge, and my first thought was to make lemon rice and chicken curry. But that sounded too boringly regular, so I decided to flip things around…and ended up with lemon chicken made using MTR’s Lemon Rice Powder!

We had it with plain rice, but it could easily have been served with parathas, or even as a starter. Definitely a great recipe for a quick weekday meal, but also for a party!

As far as experiments, this was definitely a success!