Rice Casserole with Mung Beans

This is the dish cooked to celebrate the rice harvest in southern India, one of the temple-dishes sacred to Lord Vishnu. The best, says cookery expert Julie Sahni, is the version made to feed their pilgrims by the temple cooks of the Mysore Brahmins. In northern India, it’s soupier, more like oatmeal, and known as kichdee—hence kedgeree, the breakfast dish that tickled the taste buds of the memsahi