Tons of baby food-related sites and elders must have already advised you that moong dal is easy for digestion than tuvar dal. I’ll second that. However, as your baby grows older you will want to gradually start adding toor dal in his/her food. When your baby’s around nine months old, add a few grains of toor dal when you cook moong dal rice for him/her. (I have posted the moong dal rice recipe earlier in the blog.) Next month you can increase the number of toor dal grains a bit. By the time your baby’s one year old, his/her digestive system should be ready for the dal given in this varan bhaat recipe.
Pour this dal (varan) on hot and fluffy rice. And, don’t forget to squeeze some lemon on it before serving. Lemons are an excellent source of vitamin C and the slightly tangy taste takes the dish to another level altogether. A lot of Maharashtrians will vouch for this varan bhaat recipe served with limbachi phod (a piece of lemon). :-) Simple, short n sweet recipe but kids as well as adults, really enjoy it. Hope you like it too. :-)
Varan Bhaat Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 bowl cooked rice
- 5-6 tbsp tuvar dal
- 1/4th tsp hing (asafoetida)
- 1/4th tsp haldi (turmeric powder)
- 1 piece of lemon
- salt to taste
- 1 tsp homemade ghee (clarified butter)
Instructions
- Wash tuvar dal thoroughly and then add haldi, hing, and salt.
- Add 1/4th cup of water.
- Cook in a pressure cooker on medium flame for about 20-25 minutes (8-9 whistles). You can cook the rice in the same cooker. To make the rice fluffy, cook it with almost double the water than you would use when cooking for adults.
- After the dal is cooked, check its consistency. It shouldn’t be too watery or too thick.
- Serve rice and dal in a dish.
- Cut a lemon in 4 pieces and squeeze 1 piece on the dal-rice. You don’t want to squeeze the last drop out of it. :-) Squeeze just enough to add tangy taste to the dish.
- Add homemade ghee and mix the daal-rice well with a spoon. Don’t mash the rice; if it is fluffy your baby can swallow it properly.
Also See:
Hi Mukta,
I frequently visit your blog for food receipes and it really helps me to prepare healthy food for my daughter. My Daughter is 16 months old. She will have different vegetable parathas for lunch, which she eats. She refuses to eat khichdi and Daal rice for dinner. She will have 1-2 tsp of them and then she doesn't want to eat more.
Her pediatrician told us not to feed her. Ler her eat by herself. I was searching for vegetable rice balls receipe on google, but couldn't find the accurate one.
Please could you help me out in this and also suggest ideas on how to include rice in her daily diet.
Thanks,
Meena Panchal
Hi Meena,
You can make rice porridge for her. You can make pancakes (thicker than dosa) made of rice flour. I have never tried veg rice balls. I can try one of these days. You can also give her idli or dosa even that atta is part rice. You can give her food made using poha, which again is flattened rice. Are you a Gujarati, Meena? If you know how to make muthiyas, you can add some rice in its atta.
Good luck with your efforts. :-)
Regards,
Mukta