Green Moong Dhall Rice

I have never tried anything with green moong dal before. I had to buy this dhall cos my kids had some activity in their art class with those. Since I had more than half a packet, I thought of trying something with green moong dhall.   Itried this rice with it and it came out pretty good.

Ingredients:-

1. Basmati Rice - 1 cup
2. Green Moong dhall - 3/4 cup
3. Tomato - 2
4. Onion - 1 big
5. Garlic - 3 pods
6. Ginger - a small piece
7. Green chillies -5 (acc to taste)
8. Carrot,peas,potato,Green Bell Pepper - 1 cup (thinly sliced)
9. Salt to taste
10. Turmeric powder - 1/2 tsp
11. Cardamom - 1
12. Cloves - 1
13. cashews - few for garnishing
14. Coriander leaves for garnishing
15. Oil - 1 tsp
16. Ghee - 1 tsp
17. Ajwain seeds - a pinch
18. Cumin seeds - 1/4 tsp

Soak Green Moong Dhal** for 3 to 5 hours. Wash and soak basmati rice for 10 minutes.  In the mean time, boil tomato and peel off the skin and grind it into a fine paste. keep it aside.  Also grind onion, garlic, green chillies and ginger into a fine paste. Keep it aside. Now pre heat oil & ghee in a pan, splutter cumin & ajwain seeds, cashew cinnamon & clove, saute onion paste to golden brown. Add the thinly chopped vegetables now and saute for couple of minutes. Now add the tomato paste, turmeric powder, soaked moong dhall and required amount of salt. Let everything mix well.  It will be in semi solid consistency.  Now add the basmati rice, required amount of water *** and cook it till its done.  Garnish it with coriander leaves. Enjoy with some raita.

** - I soaked green moong dhall for 1 1/2 hours which was not enough. So microwaved it for 3 minutes before adding it to the masala mix.
*** - My tomato-onion masala mix was little bit watery. So I just added 3/4 cup of water along with rice and masala mix for cooking.