This is a very healthy dish. Conjee is a kind of watery soup made with rice and lentils. You can drink this for breakfast, lunch or dinner. This drumstick leaf conjee is made with rice, green gram and drumstick leaves. It is also seasoned with grated coconut. When I was growing up, my mom made this very often. She usually makes it in a pot, but I usually make conjee in a pressure cooker. You can also use an instant pot or crock pot, as well as stove top pot, at your convenience.

I usually buy drumstick leaves at my local Indian grocery store. Sometimes, if I don’t get the drumstick leaves in the shop, I use some drumstick leaf powder. As I write this, I laugh to myself about how things have changed. Once upon a time, as a child, I hated conjee and when my mom picked the drumstick leaves from the tree in front of our house, I would think “Oh no, she is going to make conjee today”. Most of the houses in my hometown in India have drumstick trees growing in their yard. My little sister and I would try to take out all the leaves from the conjee, but it would be too hard, so we’d finally give up and just drink the conjee. It wasn’t until later in life that it became one of my favorite dishes. It’s funny thinking about it now, because of my two daughters, one of them loves conjee and the other hates it with a passion – just like I used to.

Ingredients

• Rice —————————- 1/2 cup (I used matta rice)
• Green gram ————— 1/2 cup
• Drumstick leaves —– 1 cup(cleaned)
• Shallots ——————— 4 (peeled)
• Fenugreek seeds —— 1/4 tsp (optional)
• Water ————————- 4 cups
• Salt to taste
• For Seasoning
• Grated coconut ——— 1/4 cup

How to make

• Place a 5 qt pressure cooker with 4 cups of water on the stove and bring it to boil
• Wash the rice, green gram and fenugreek seeds
• Then add all the ingredients into the boiling water
• Add a teaspoon of salt
• Close the pressure cooker with lid
• Once the steam starts coming, put the weight
• Keep the stove on medium heat and cook for around 20 minutes
• Switch off the stove and wait for the pressure to release
• Now open the pressure cooker lid
• Add the grated coconut and just mix it
• Check the salt and if required add more and mix again
• Now it should be ready to serve
• Enjoy with coconut thuvaiyal or any pickle

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Notes: Instead of matta rice, you can use any kind of boiled rice