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Bhoonee Kitcheeree of the Gram or Chunna Dal

A simple dish of cooked gram dal and rice simmered together with salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Rice and ghee work together. They rank in the top 23% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 458 recipes. Both carry gamma-undecalactone, which smells peach, sweet. The science ↓

Bhoonee Kitcheeree of the Gram or Chunna Dal

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the gram dal in cold water for at least 1 hour.

  2. Drain the dal and set aside.

Cook

  1. In a pot, heat ghee or oil over medium heat.

  2. Add the soaked dal and fry for a few minutes.

  3. Add the raw rice and stir well.

  4. Pour in enough water to cover the mixture and add salt.

  5. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer until rice and dal are cooked.

  6. Serve hot.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Rice + gheetop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together458 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-undecalactone (peach, sweet).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Gram dal
Provides protein-rich body and a nutty flavour that thickens the dish as it cooks.
Raw rice
Absorbs water as it simmers, giving the dish its soft, starchy body.
Ghee or oil
Carries fat for frying the dal, adding richness and helping the grains brown lightly.

The step that matters

Simmer until rice and dal are cooked. Gram dal and rice cook at different rates and both need enough water. Too little water or too high a heat can leave the dal hard or scorch the bottom of the pot, while steady low simmering lets both soften evenly.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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