Mosaranna or Curd Rice Recipe | South Indian Tempered Yogurt Rice Recipe

Learn how to make Mosaranna or Mosaru Anna or Curd Rice ~ Popular South Indian rice mixed with creamy sweet yogurt, finely chopped vegetables and fruits tempered with green chillies, ginger and indian spices

~Long rant alert~

Let me warn you in the beginning. This is going to be one long rant. If you are here for the recipe, just skip it and scroll down to the recipe part.

Food blogging is 24/7 job, and mostly it is unpaid/low paid job. We food bloggers put hours and sometimes, days of work into creating every single blog post; recipe idea, back ground food/recipe research, recipe creation, recipe testing, re-testing 4-5 times, taking accurate measurement of the ingredients, jotting down tips/little useful notes, food styling, food photographing, editing the photographs, writing the blog post, crediting/mentioning the original source, editing and finally posting/publishing it. The work doesn’t end there! We also read patiently and reply to every single queries. Apart from labelled as food bloggers, most of us are the sole photographers, content creators, editors, cooks, cleaners, food stylists and also the dishwashers!

And there are some people who ‘research’ on Google and get ‘inspired’ by others write ups and recipes and simply ‘ctrl C + ctrl P’ not just the recipes, but also the stories/prologue to the recipe posts. I will not call them lazy. I will not even call them naïve. They are simply the plagiarists who ride high by stealing others content and passing them as their own and go another step by ‘copyright’ing the stolen content! What for? Fame? Money? Popularity? I don’t know! When my 6 year old knows what's right from wrong, I find it rather saddening to see a well-educated people who pretend to be ignorant and plays victim card, It clearly shows that education and ethics and values are two different things!

It takes years of hard work and dedication to produce original contents year after year. I do feel that serious food blogging is slowly coming to end with the steady rise and popularity in short cooking videos. Most young and new generation of food bloggers seem to be hungry for success in short period of time and sadly some choose shortcuts to fame.

The rate at which the food bloggers/FB pages/Newspapers/magazines continue to plagiarise our content is seriously making me consider quit everything! I really don't know how long I am going to actively blog. It may be for days, some months or may be a year or two when I feel exhausted of watching my years of hard work being ripped off and made into a laughing stock! Let’s face a fact that when and if I shut down my blog, the world is not going to end, both yours and mine! There is no dearth of talent and creativity, but the plagiarism is a cancer that is spreading like a wildfire consuming all our time, passion and energy! At least I will not have to spend most part of my day fuming and worrying about someone stealing my work and worse, passing them as their own, fooling hundreds and thousands of people!

Gone are the days when food blogging was all about sharing the recipes and building a community of people who shared same passion for food. These are the times when corporate world has tapped the potential in the food blogging world and have spread their PR web to promote their business. There is nothing wrong in that as in some cases it is a win-win situation for bloggers as well as companies. I am in awe of people who have turned their hobbies into full time job by their sheer passion and hard work. They command huge respect for their talent and vision. But when one blogs solely for fame or/and money, it is easy to get trapped in their own web of lies and fall so low that they can never rise in other's eyes! Blogging for fame and money is not unethical or bad, but choosing the wrong path, mostly by taking shortcuts like plagiarising is unpardonable. Blogging should be done with passion and bring joy in the long term, not just short term monetary benefits or two minutes of fame. It is really saddening to see how ideologies, values and ethics are stripped naked for few coins and fame! I am afraid to see that the sound of jingling coins and clapping noise of blind followers seems to talk loud and clear than inner voice/conscious!

Please understand that food bloggers are not just bunch of people with a spoon in one hand and a camera in another who take photograph of every dish that comes from our kitchen! Food blogging is not very different from any art form; it takes time, perseverance, sincerity and dedication to produce every single original blog posts. It is a continuous learning process and there are no shortcuts. The food blogging fraternity have been fighting this ugly battle against plagiarists for a very long time. We have won many small battles, but the war is far from ending!

Please bear in mind that when you say that ‘copying is the best form of flattery’, you really are not praising our work or complimenting us, but insulting our creativity and hard work. It is never ‘just’ a photograph or ‘only’ the recipe and never a ‘small’ matter. It is much more than that! Stealing content in virtual world is no different to the thief burgling our home as that feeling of invasion of personal space will probably take much longer to get over. All we ask from you is to stand by us and support us as we work hard to prevent/stop such people who think the shortcut to success is by stealing others work and posing them as their own. If you can’t say the right thing, then please don’t say anything!

~Long rant ends~

Today I am sharing one of my most favourite childhood recipes, Mosaranna or Curd Rice. Curd rice or mosaranna or or mosaru-anna (ಮೊಸರು-ಅನ್ನ, pronounced as mo-sa-roo un-aa) where mosaru means yogurt and Anna means rice in Kannada. Mosaranna or Curd Rice is a very popular rice dish from South India. The word "curd" in India usually refers to unsweetened yogurt and this homemade set yogurt is part of every south Indian meal. In our home, no meal is complete without a serving of curds mixed with rice and eaten with a smudge of mango pickle in the end. As much as I like my Mosaru Anna/Curd Rice served chilled, as a kid it was my favourite dish to take to school for lunch box as it tastes good even at room temperature. Every time my mother packed my lunch box with this Curd Rice, she would laugh and say that she may be able to count the number of starts in the sky, but she can never keep a count of number of times she cooked it for my lunch boxes! That’s how much I loved and continue to love this dish!

To prepare this dish, the rice is cooked until it breaks down, becoming almost paste like and then cooled down to room temperature. It is then seasoned with finely chopped green chillies, ginger, and curry leaves fried in oil, and sometimes along with the tadka of urad dal, mustard seeds, cumin seeds, and hing/asafoetida. I usually make this with leftover rice in fridge as it tastes best when cold and chill. And what can be better for any food lover when it comes to making some wonderful dish with leftovers. While it is most easily prepared by simply mixing boiled rice and yogurt, I prefer the more elaborate method where I add generous amount of vegetables and fruits like finely chopped onions, tomatoes, cucumber, grated carrots and fruits like pomegranate and sometimes, chopped pineapple pieces and/or grapes. I also like to add cashew nuts and raisins fried in ghee until they are roasted and plumped. Finally, milk, yogurt, and salt are added. This, my friends, is the most satisfying and comfort food when served with a piece of South Indian mango or lime pickle and something I can eat almost every single day! This dish screams summer on a plate, even if we are talking about non-existing British summer!

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Mosaranna or Curd Rice (Popular South Indian rice mixed with creamy sweet yogurt, finely chopped vegetables and fruits tempered with green chillies, ginger and indian spices)
Prep Time: 15 mins
Cooking Time: 10 mins (If cooking with left over rice) or 30 mins (If cooking with freshly cooked rice)
Recipe Level: Easy/Beginner
Spice Level: Low
Serves: 4-5 People
Shelf Life: Best served fresh but can be refrigerated for a day
Serving Suggestion: With any spicy pickle

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Ingredients:
4-5 cups of Cooked White Rice(I use Sona Masuri Rice)
1½ - 2 cups of sweet Yogurt
½ cup Milk (Optional)
1 medium Red Onion, finely chopped
2 medium Tomatoes, finely chopped
1 medium Carrot, peeled and grated
2 Green Chillies, finely chopped (Optinal, adjust as per taste. Deseed if needed)
¾-1 inch Ginger, finely chopped or grated (Adjust as per taste)
½ cup Pomegranate (Optional, but recommended. Read notes)
2 tbsp Coriander Leaves, finely chopped
Salt to taste

For Tadka/Tempering:
1 tsp Oil
1 tsp Mustard
1 tbsp Urad Dal
1 tbsp Channa Dal
A generous pinch of Hing/Adafoetida (Optional)
A spring or two of Curry Leaves

For Garnish:
½ tbsp. Oil or Ghee
2 tbsp Raisin
3-4 tbsp Cashew Nuts

Method:

1. If you are preparing the fresh rice, make sure that the rice has cooled down to room temperature. For this dish, the rice should well cooked, almost paste like. I use 1:3 ratio of rice and water when cooking the fresh rice.
2. Mix the yogurt with cooked rice. Add cold milk or water to get porridge like consistency.
3. Next add chopped onion, tomatoes, grated carrots, finely chopped coriander leaves and 2/3rd of pomegranate arils. Add salt to taste and give it a good mix.
4. In a pan, heat oil or ghee. Once hot, add broken cashew nuts and fry them until they turn light golden. Add raisins and fry them until they plump up. Transfer them to prepared curd rice.
5. Next heat oil for tempering in the same pan. Once hot, add mustard seeds, urad dal and channa dal. When mustard starts to pop and splutter and the lentils change their colour to golden brown, add finely chopped green chillies, ginger, curry leaves and hing. Fry them for a minute before transferring the tempering to prepared curd rice. Mix them all well and adjust the seasonings if needed.
6. Garnish with finely chopped coriander leaves and pomegranate. Serve this deliciously soul satisfying bowl of Mosaranna or Curd Rice at room temperature or chilled as per your desire. Don’t forget to eat it with tender mango pickle and enjoy!

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Sia’s Notes:

• If you are preparing the fresh rice, make sure that the rice has cooled down to room temperature. For this dish, the rice should well cooked, almost paste like. I use 1:3 ratio of rice and water when cooking the fresh rice.
• Make sure that the yogurt is not sour. I prefer using unsweetened set yogurt for this dish.
• Add cold milk or water to get porridge like consistency.
• You can skip using pomegranate or simply use other seasonal fruits like chopped pineapple and/or grapes.