The minimal Bengali meal: alu-bhate-bhat (boiled rice with mashed potatoes)

This is what one makes when lacking time/energy to cook a proper meal.

Ingredients:

1. rice: according to your appetite. The amount depends on the kind of rice and how old it is. Remember that freshly husked rice does not increase in volume as much as old rice when boiled. Also, parboiled rice is not as filling as unboiled rice (after cooking).
2. potatoes: 1-2 medium
3. salt: according to taste
4. oil: 1-2 tsp (any of mustard oil/sunflower oil/ghee/butter, I have not tried any other oil - but whatever edible oil/fat you like can be used)
5. chili - 1-2 green or dried red (optional)
6. onion - 1 small (optional)

Procedure:

1. Wash the rice and the potatoes in water.
2.  Slice the potatoes into 2-4 pieces. This determines how fast they are cooked. If using a pressure cooker, you may not need to slice them at all.
3. Boil the rice and the potatoes together. Determining the amount of water is tricky. My rough standard is: for pressure cooker, the water level should remain 1" higher than the rice level (without the potatoes). If cooking in a pot, it depends on how much opening there is for vapour to go out and at what temperature you are cooking it. It may be safer to put excess water and drain it out at the end of cooking (but you lose a lot of nutritional elements with that). You may keep some of the excess water and have a semi-liquid version [called "phyan bhaat" (rice with starch)].
4. Take the potatoes out of the rice. If the potatoes are fresh from the farms, they tend to have thin skin which is edible. Otherwise peel them using your fingers.
5. Mash the potatoes with salt (1/2 tsp or according to taste), oil, green chili and chopped raw onions. If you are using dried red chili, roast them first and then mash them. You can vary the taste by mixing the oil, chili, onion first and mashing them together before mixing the potatoes. Roll the whole thing into a ball.
6. For each mouthful, top the rice with a little bit of the mashed potatoes and eat. 
7. Additional taste enhancers: You may want to sprinkle some extra salt on the rice for better taste. You can bite off bits of raw onion and/or green chili with each mouthful. You can squeeze a teaspoonful of lemon juice on the rice. You can add extra lump of butter or  some ghee to the rice.