Pudina Pulao with Mix Vegetable Curry

Looks like a time-taking recipe, but trust me, the combo can be cooked in just about half hour.

Pudina/mint pulao's been inspired from Mahanandi.

Coming to veggy curry, I got a chance to taste this at a friend's house. She's this terrific cook and a sweet talker who I'm sure would rock the food-blog-world if she starts blogging on a serious note.

The curry just takes 15min to be ready, seriously.. :) All you need is to have a tin of Trader Joes "masala simmer sauce" in your pantry. Its this tomato based sauce with all the Indian kurma spices included in it.

Here's the curry recipe:

Ingredients:

1. Trader Joes "Masala Simmer Sauce" - 1/3 tin
2. Potato - 1 medium size
3. 1 cup Frozen veggies (carrot, beans, corn and peas) or fresh veggies - your choice
4. Cashewnuts - 4
5. Khus-khus/poppy seeds - 1 tsp
6. Shredded coconut - 1/2 tsp

Method:

1. Break the whole cashew into small chunks and soak them along with khus-khus and coconut in a small amount of milk. I suggest you do this atleast 2 hours in advance, so that the poppy seeds can be easily blended in the mixer.
2. Cube the potato and microwave until they are 75% cooked.
3. Heat a spoonful of oil (not much reqd since the sauce already has enough oil) and toss the boiled potato and the mixed vegetables. Add some salt (just sufficient for the vegetables, sauce contains salt too)
   
4. Cook on low flame with lid covered until the veggies turn tender
5. Add the sauce and may be half cup water to the vegetables.
6. Simmer for about 5min.
7. Grind the cashew-poppy-coconut mix to a not-so-smooth-not-so-coarse paste. Its okay if the poppy seeds aren't crushed completely.
8. Add this paste to the gravy, stir the contents and serve hot with yummy yummy pudina pulao and curd.

Vegetable pulao

I prefer calling this pulao, and not biryani. For biryani is a very divine dish, with lots of hardwork involved. What I'm blogging here can be made real quick.

Version 1 - Healthy and tasty

Ingredients:

Pictorial version first. :)

1. Basmati rice - 1.5 cups
2. Vegetables - carrot, potato, beans, green peas, etc etc
3. Onion - 1 medium size
4. Green chillies - 3,4 (depends on the heat of the chillies)
5. Ginger garlic paste - 1 tbsp
6. Whole garam masala (cardamom #3, cloves #3, bay leaves #3, cinnamon 1 inch stick)
7. Biryani masala (any brand) - 2 tbsp

Method:

1. Wash and soak the rice for 20 minutes
2. Cut the veggies into inch long pieces. Heard that adding potato causes the pulao/biryani to become sticky/mushy when you finally mix the biryani before serving. But still, I can't do without aloo.
3. Onion needs to cut into thin and long pieces
4. Slit the green chillies vertically
5. Heat a tbsp oil and fry the whole garam masala. Don't add too much oil in this step as the GG paste (added next) takes up all the oil that you add.
   
6. Fry the GG paste in oil, followed by onions and chillies
7. Add some ghee, little more oil and fry the veggies. Cover the pan and let the veggies cook on medium flame for 5min
8. For 1.5 cups rice, add 1 tbsp salt and biryani masala
9. Drain the water from rice and add it to the veggies. Stir fry everything for another 5 min
10. Pan to cooker plus water (as reqd)
    

Serve hot with yummy raitha (curd+onions+cucumber+salt).



Version 2 - Less healthy but more tasty

Drop all the masalas above (ginger garlic, whole masala and the garam masala powder) and use Parampara Biryani Mix instead. This is a semi-solid paste made with a whole bunch of spices and is sold in most Indian grocery stores.



For making "parampara" biryani, fry the onions - then the paste (half packet for 1.5 cups rice) - & then the veggies followed by rice - add salt (a little less 'coz the paste already has salt), water & cook.

Since the paste is oily, and has been made long before we use it, I call this a "less healthier" version of the veggie pulao recipe I wrote above. But, taste-wise, I have to admit, it's amazingly delicious!!! Almost like the one served at Hyderabad House. If you want to prepare authentic hyderabadi biryani without much effort, Parampara comes to your rescue!

Jeera rice

Been a while since I blogged. Was pre-occupied with a million other things over the last 2.5 weeks. Finally, I'm back to blogger!

As an employee, I used to wait for the work-week to end, so that I'll have two days all for myself. Each Friday morning, I'd say "TGI (Thank God It's) Friday" when I wake up :) Even though I'm not working anymore, I still love Fridays. At home, I welcome the weekend with a nice yummy dinner on Friday nights. On a Friday, I'm posting what I made on another TGIF. Bah! Too many Fridays in one paragraph.

As promised earlier, here comes my post on Jeera Rice. Very easy to make, and quite healthy too.

Ingredients:

1. Basmati Rice - 1.5 cup
2. Jeera/cumin seeds - 3 tbsp
3. Whole garam masala (Cloves #3, Cardamom #3, Cinnamon 1 inch, Bay leaves #3)
4. Onion - 1
   
5. Cashewnuts - to your heart's content :)

Method:

1. Wash and soak the rice for about 20minutes
2. Cut the onion into thin, inch long pieces
3. Add a tbsp of oil + a tbsp of ghee to a saucepan and heat it
4. In go the jeera, whole garam masala and the cashewnuts
   
5. Fry the onions next
6. Drain the rice and add it to the pan. Toss the contents and fry for 2-3 minutes
7. Add sufficient salt and empty the pan into a rice cooker
8. Adding the required amount of water, cook till the rice is done

Here's what we had - Jeera rice with Rajma, Masala buttermilk on the side in a perfect dinner setting on a perfect day :)





Punjabi khana from an Andhra Kitchen. Howz that?

Bisibela bath

An authentic Karnataka dish, also called Sambar rice in other parts of the country. A single pot meal that gives the benefit of eating dal, rice and vegetables all in one go! 

Besides dal, rice and vegetables, the important ingredient that goes into the making of Bisibela bath is the spice powder. Most people make it at home, however, MTR bisibela bath masala is good enough for lazy people like me.

Ingredients:

1. Toor dal - 1/2 cup
2. Rice - 1/2 cup
3. Vegetables - carrot, beans, potato
4. Onion - 1 medium size
5. Bisibela bath powder - 2,3 spoons
6. Tamarind juice - 2 tbl spoons
7. Popu/Tadka - mustard, jeera, curry leaves and heeng 
8. Cashewnuts - as you wish :)

Method:

1. Pressure cook dal & rice together with 2 cups water
2. Chop the vegetables into inch long pieces and (steam/microwave) cook them too
3. Cut the onion into thin inch long pieces (as long as the veggies)
4. Fry a spoonful of ghee & oil and do the tadka
5. Once the mustard seeds start to pop, add the onions
6. Next add the cooked vegetables and fry
7. Add the dal-rice mixture to the fried vegetables. At this stage, add salt and a pinch of turmeric powder
8. Toss in the bisibela bath masala and tamarind juice 
   
9. Adding a little water, bring all the ingredients together. Skip this step if you like your bisibela bath to be grainy and not one mashed lump of rice
10. Adjust salt, spice powder, tamarind juice as required. You could also add some chilli powder if you like it hot
11. Garnish with ghee roasted cashewnuts and serve hot

When I cook something from an online recipe, I end up running several times back & forth between the stove & the computer. So as to check if I'm on track :) If you're also like me and if you're going to make bisibela bath using MTR powder, you could avoid running this time - bcoz the recipe above is what is written on the back of the MTR packet. :D

Entry to events:

Single Serving Recipes event.

Cooking for kids: Rice event.

Curd rice

I generally cook only in the morning and we eat whatever is leftover for dinner. When there isn't much left for the evening, I end up making a bowl of curd rice. We love it so much that we can have plate-fulls of just curd rice. Very soothing on the taste buds, very cool on the stomach, and very very easy to prepare. 

Learnt the recipe from my Mom. Here it is:

Ingredients:

1. Rice - cooked
2. Curd (I prefer the home-made curd to store-bought yougurt for this recipe)
3. Grated coconut (fresh/dessicated)
4. Ginger - finely chopped
5. Green chillies - slit length-wise
6. Popu/tadka - urad dal, mustard, jeera, curry leaves, red chillies & heeng
7. Grated carrot & coriander leaves for garnishing

Method:

1. Add salt and some sugar to curd
2. Allow the rice to cool & add it to the curd
3. Fry the popu/tadka along with ginger and green chillies and add it to curd rice prepared above
   
   
   
   
   
   
4. Add a spoonful of coconut powder
5. Adjust salt as required
6. Garnish with carrot & cilantro
7. Refrigerate before serving

Since curd rice can be served to a single person as a single-course meal, this recipe goes to the Single serving recipes event.

Also goes to: Cooking for kids: Rice event.