Homemade baby rice.

If cooking for adults is difficult because of the have too many preferences and choices. What about cooking for babies?? that is more stressful than you can imagine. Before i tell you more about this recipe please consult your doctor on starting off solid food for the baby.

Solid food introduction should be slow and steady, any new item introduced should be given at least 3 days continuously, this helps in understanding if the baby has adapted to it or if the baby has any allergies to the new item introduced with it. It is also recommended that introduction of a new item should be ONE AT A TIME  basis and not clubbed with anything else. That way it is easy to know if your baby has any allergies to that particular food. I am sure you all know it but sharing what my doctor suggested.  

Babies develop a taste very early and i feel introducing them to different vegetables will be beneficial when they grow up. I make this rice for my 1 year old and he seems to like it. Starting solid food for babies is a huge task, infact down south it's like a mini family function to announce that the baby is now eating solids! we call it "Anna prasana" meaning start of eating rice. In this post i will show you how to how baby rice and will follow it up with other baby food options. 

How to make baby rice?

In order to ensure that the food is digested easily, we will first wash the rice and daal then will dry fry them separately. You can make enough for a week and store it in a airtight container. I make it every saturday, you can choose whatever day is comfortable for you. 

The proportion entirely depend on you, my son's nutritionist suggested we keep changing the ratios. Ex: You take 2 spoons of rice and 1 spoon of daal today, change it to 1.5 spoons rice and 1.5 daal. Keeping the final number of scoops unchanged , play with the ratio. This will ensure your LO will not get stuck on one taste and is open to new varieties. 

Let us begin with making baby rice first. 

What we need to make baby rice: 

• Rice
• Cumin Seeds/ Jeera 
• Carom Seeds / Ajwain 

We will first wash the rice thoroughly at least 5-6 times and spread it on a cloth to ensure the water in it is all eliminated. i leave it for at least 3-4  hours. Check the rice and once you are satisfied that it is fully dry, take a big wok and start to dry fry the rice. Because we have washed the rice it will start to break when you dry fry. That is absolutely fine, keep it aside to cool (very important). 

Now take some Jeera and dry fry it, do not let it burn. Same way fry the Ajwain.

Please be mindful that we need to fry everything separately, as each of these take different amount of time to fry, if you fry them together there is a chance you might end up burning something or not frying something properly. It is ok to mix them while cooling down. That is it your baby rice is all ready! :) 

Notes: 

• Let the rice cool completely before you store it, else the moisture from the heat will spoil your rice. 
• You can slowly add a boiled and mashed vegetable.
• You can add Ghee for taste.  
• You can also add Daal, which is washed and fried the same way. 
• Make sure you mash the cooked rice well, (if feeding teh first time) babies might not be able to chew. 
• When you cook the rice, you can skip sugar or salt. Avoid it as long as possible. Use it as a variation and a compulsion.