Beetroot Rice

Beetroot rice is rice cooked with beetroot, which turns it a deep purple, and it is worth saying plainly that the source for this recipe is describing an Indian dish. Beetroot pulao is a well established South Indian preparation, and the source's own text discusses pulao, sona masuri rice and serving with raita, none of which are Nigerian references. That does not make the dish uninteresting, and there is a real Nigerian angle to it. Rice is the most eaten starch in urban Nigeria and cooked rice with stew is among the most common household meals in the country, so a coloured rice variation slots into an existing habit easily. Nigerian cooks have adopted vegetable rice dishes from a range of sources and made them ordinary, in the same way that spaghetti and coleslaw have become normal parts of the national table. What can be said with confidence is that this is a contemporary dish rather than an inherited one, and that its documented lineage runs to India rather than to Africa. The country field is left empty for that reason. Beetroot itself is not an African crop and is not part of any traditional African preparation on the continent. The recipe is included as what it is, with the attribution left open for a contributor to settle.