Vegetable Pulav

One of my quick-fix lunch menu, when I am really short of time. It comes together in less than 20 min, and you really do not need many side-dishes. A pickle and raita / curd tastes great. The coconut milk adds a delicate yet rich flavour to the rice.



Ingredients

Basmati rice - 2 cups, soaked in water for half hour and then drained
Chopped vegetables - 2 cups (beans, carrots, green peas, cauliflower etc)
Coconut milk - 2 cups (extracted from half coconut, medium consistency)
Water - 2 cups
Salt - as needed
Big onion - 1 small, thinly sliced
Garlic - 2 cloves, crushed
Ginger - 1 inch piece, crushed
Green chilly - 2 slit or Red Chilly powder - 1 tsp
Coriander powder - 1 tsp



Masala 
Cardamom - 2 nos
Cloves - 3
Cinnamon - 2 pieces
Bayleaf - 1
Star Anise - 1

Ghee - 1 tbsp



Method

1. Heat a deep bottom pan. Add the ghee.
2. When ghee is hot enough, add the masala items. Let them splutter.
3. Add sliced onions, ginger-garlic and chilly (if using)
4. Let them saute for a while, till the raw smell is gone. If using red chilly powder, add at this stage. Add the coriander powder too and saute till raw smell leaves.
5. Now add the chopped veggies. Saute them for 2-3 minutes. Sprinkle from salt at this stage.
6. Add the drained rice and mix together with the veggies. Add coconut milk and water. Adjust the salt. Close with a lid and lower the flame to low (lowest possible).
Cook till the rice is done. Once the rice has absorbed all the liquid, slowly fluff with a fork.

Enjoy with a Raita & Chutney and some pickle.

Tomato Coconut Rice

This is another one-pot rice dish and a quick lunch-box preparation when you are short of time in the morning. It pairs well with raita and pickle.

Ingredients

Rice  - 2.5 cups

Ghee or oil - 1 tbsp

Spices

   Bay leaf - 1

   Cardamom - 1

   Star anise - 1

   Cinnamon - 1" stick

   Clove - 2

Salt - as needed

Grated coconut - 1 cup

Tomato - 3 big, chopped roughly in chunks

Water - as needed, see notes below

Method

1. Soak the rice in plenty of water for atleast 10 min. Drain it.
2. Grind the tomato in big jar of the mixer, and keep it aside. This will be around 2 cups.
3. Grind grated coconut with some water (around 1/2 cup) in the same jar and keep aside. This will be around 2 cups. If you have enough time, you can use coconut milk instead of ground coconut.

Note : Measure the amount of tomato and grated coconut mixture. For 2.5 cups of rice, you'll need around 6 cups of liquid. So for the remaining amount of liquid, add water. In this case, add around 2 cups of water.

4. In a wide-mouthed vessel, add ghee / oil and add the spices. Stir in between, wait for about 30 seconds.
5. Add the drained rice and stir gently in ghee. Let it fry for about 30s.
6. Add the ground tomatoes, coconut and required amount of water. Close tightly with lid and let it cook in the lowest flame.



It will take about 12- 15 minutes for the rice to cook. After around 10 min, open the lid and check if the rice is cooked. If yes, fluff the rice gently with fork, switch off the stove. After this, do not close the lid tightly.

Serve it with some raita and pickle.

Carrot Rice with Challas

I am always in look out for quick one-bowl rice recipes, as my husband prefers home-cooked lunch and he has to leave home sharp at 6:45 in the morning for work...thanks to Dubai traffic. So you can imagine my kitchen on a normal day morning.. the breakfast, milk, tea, coffee need to be ready 6:15 am and lunch box to be ready by 6:45. I also have to pack 2 tiffin boxes for the kiddos..and no junk items allowed in the school. So that's a lot of work in the morning, but atleast satisfied that the family is eating healthy stuff.

The carrot rice is one easy recipe, which I accidentally discovered one day when I had to prepare lunch in 15 min and all I had as curry/sidedish was a carrot thoran. So I just cooked some white rice and mixed with the thoran. From then on, carrot rice has been my trusted partner on very busy mornings. You can have it along with Challas or simply curd and pickle. Its simple, yet delicious and healthy. Here goes the recipe.

Ingredients

Carrot - 1 big, chopped fine (I just popped it into the food processor, and pulsed twice)
Big onion - 1 medium, finely chopped
Green chilly - 2, finely chopped
Garlic - 1 clove, finely chopped
Ginger - 1 inch piece, finely chopped
(Again, I used food processor for chopping onion, chilly, garlic and ginger..all will be done in a matter of seconds!!)
Curry leaves, parsely - optional

Basmati rice / Jeerakasala rice - 2 cups, soaked in water for 10 minutes and drained
Hot water / water - 4 cups

Oil - 1 tbsp
Mustard seeds - 1/2 tsp



Method

1. Heat oil in a deep bottom heavy pan.
2. Crackle the mustard.
3. Add the chopped onion, ginger, garlic, chillies. Saute them till the raw smell goes.
4. Add the chopped carrots. Saute for couple of minutes.
5. At this point, if you want to spice up your dish, you can add chilly powder.
6. Add 4 cups of water, and allow it to boil
7. Add salt.
8. Once water boils, add the drained rice, stir gently and cover and cook on the lowest flame. The rice should be cooked in about 10-15 minutes' time depending on the variety of rice you are using and also on the soaking time.
9. Once cooked, and all the water evaporated, remove the lid and fluff up the rice with a fork. Do not close the lid fully as it will over cook.
Your healthy, delicious carrot rice is ready!!

Challas

If you haven't tastes this salad yet, you are definitely missing out on something!! Trust me..you really are missing out!! It is such a tasty and healthy salad which can never go wrong. Try it for yourself and see.

I think this was authentic salad used Syrian Christians long back, before the salad with curd took over. As per our tradition, we do not use curd along with meat or fish dishes. So in earlier days, for weddings and other functions, this challas was served along with meat cutlets.

Ingredients

Big onion - 1 small, sliced

Green chilly - 1, slit

Thick coconut milk - 1 cup

Vinegar - 1 tbsp

Salt - as per taste

Mashed potato - 2 tbsp (optional)

Grated carrot - 1 tbsp (optional)

Method

Take the sliced onion in a bowl and add salt and vinegar. Mix up these three thoroughly with your hand and squeeze the juice out. So that will leave you just with onions, with all unwanted juices removed. Now add the thick (yes, it should be really thick to get the authentic taste..I used 2 cups of loosely pasked grated coconut to get 1 cup of milk) coconut milk and add salt if more is needed.

Add the slit green chilly.

If you want to make the salad little more thick, you can add the mashed potato.

Also if you want to make it a bit more colourful, add some grated carrots.

There you are!! Enjoy your meal...

Quick Fried Rice

Ok...I have just got 30 minutes before my son comes back home for lunch, and I haven't yet prepared lunch!! Checked the fridge...have got little bit of prawns curry (only 5 pieces and some gravy left), yesterday's beef curry (3 small pieces left - after I sent lunch for hubby), some french beans and just 1 egg left. Have to do something very quick...checked for rice..have 1.5 cups of basmati rice left. Immediately put for soaking. Meanwhile I worked on the veggie, chopped them really fine. After 10 minutes of soaking, immediately boiled the rice. It got ready in another 10 minutes while chopped the prawns and prawns to smaller pieces. Kept the cooked rice under fan so that it gets cooled fast..In another kadai, immediately added some oil, added the chopped veggie, prawns & beef with a generous sprinkling of salt and pepper. When they were almost crisp, they were removed to one corner of pan, the egg  was added, immediately sprinkled with salt and pepper. They were fried too. Mixed everything again together. Checked the rice, its cold now..so added them to the kadai. Thorough mix...tasted...it tasted bland...so added the prawns gravy (whatever was left) ..tasted..oops..I forgot to add more salt, pepper and even forgot the soy sauce..added them..mixed up.. tasted ..it could still be better ...checked the fridge...got Nando's Lemon n Herbs sauce (I somehow dont like adding tomato sauce to fried rice as it makes the entire dish red) ...added generously... mixed up..tasted ...WOWWW.... Switched off the stove, closed the pan with the lid for the amazing flavours to set in and ran down to pick up my son...
That was one of the best fried rice I have ever tasted...

I really think we moms becomes creative and the best comes out of us when we are under pressure.. So here goes my "Fried Rice in 30 minutes" recipe.



Ingredients

Basmati rice - 1.5 cups
Water - 3 cups
Salt - as required

Cooked Prawns (I used curried) - 1/2 cup
Cooked meat (beef or chicken) - 1/2 cup
Veggies , chopped - 1/2 cup (carrot, beans etc)
Egg - 1 (you can add upto 2)
Soy sauce - 1 tbsp
Lemon and Herbs sauce - 3 tbsp (I used Nando's)
Salt & Pepper - as per taste

Method 

Soak rice for atleast 10 min. Then cook the rice with double the amount water, add some salt too. Once cooked, keep it for cooling. Meanwhile, heat a wide mouthed pan (big enough to hold rice), add some oil (ideally, gingelly oil). Once the oil is hot, add the veggies and sprinkle some salt and pepper. Let them get crisp. Keep it aside. Now add prawns and meat. Remove them from oil once crisp. Scramble egg into left-over oil, sprinkle salt and pepper immediately and scramble well. Once egg is cooked, keep it aside. In the remaining oil (add more oil if there is not enough left), add the cooled rice, give it a good stir. Sprinkle salt and pepper. Now add the fried items that were kept aside. Give everything a nice mix. Add the sauces, and thoroughly mix again. Check for salt. Once everything is mixed well and taste is ok, keep the pan closed with its lid for sometime. This allows for all the flavors to set in.

You can either have it just like that or serve with some chinese side dishes.

Malabar Chicken Biriyani

I owe this post totally to Mishmash. She painstakingly explained each and every detail of making the wonderful Malabar Chicken Biryani in her blog quite a while back, for learners like me. Since then I have been using her recipe for making this dish..I have made this not less than 10 times and not even once it has gone un-complemented.... Mishmash....you simply rock!

I am not re-writing the entire recipe here...as its bit too long and am lazy! You can get the detailed recipe here. I would suggest you to definitely try this out as its worth the effort and your family and guests are gonna enjoy it like anything. Do serve it with some Raitha, Biryani Chutney, pappad and pickle. It tastes fabulous..in fact it tastes the best the next day! I also love mixing some cooked biryani rice with gravy left in the vessel used for cooking the chicken.

Some tips to get your perfect biryani (which I learnt through my experience) :

• Jeerakasala rice is the perfect rice for Malabar chicken biryani. Soak the rice atleast for half an hour and then drain water completely.
• Special care should be taken while cooking the rice. It should not be over cooked or under-cooked. The rice should be removed from heat once its cooked and drained immediately. 
• The rice and chicken should be layered and left to dum for atleast 3 hrs. This gives enough time for the flavors to set in. I normally layer the biryani in the serving dish which cannot be placed on flame. So what I do is, I cover it tightly with aluminium foil and when its time to serve, keep it in a pre-heated oven for 10 minutes. If your vessel can be placed on stove, before serving you can place it on a heated iron tava for 15-20 minutes.
• Garnish the biryani with onions, cashew and raisins only just before serving. Other wise, the onions will impart a black colour and a not-so-pleasant smell to the biryani. Also the cashew will turn soft and lose its crispiness.

Curd Rice

This is one dish that I always make in a haste...or rather I make this when I am hard pressed for time in the morning rush and I have no other option but to pack a quick lunch for my husband. Trust me...its easy and tastes great with pickle and pappad.

I am sure that my method of cooking curd rice is NOT the authentic way of making it, as the curd rice we have from Tamilian restaurants here in Dubai tastes quite bland. So I spice it up by adding some chillies, dried chilly & ginger. Also I garnish it with urid dal and sometimes with channa dal which gives something to chew on.

Ingredients

Cooked white rice, cooled - 2 cups
Curd - 2 cups
Salt - as per taste

Seasoning

Mustard seeds - 1/2 tsp
Urid dal - 1 tbsp
Small onion - 3-4, thinly sliced
Grated ginger - 1 tsp
Green chilly - 2 , sliced
Dried chilly - 2
Curry leaves - 1 sprig
Oil - 1 tbsp

Mix the cooked, cooled white rice with well beaten curd and add enough salt. Keep it aside.

Heat a pan, add oil. Once hot, crackle mustard seeds and then add the urid dal. Stir till the dal turns brownish. Now add small onions, grated ginger, green chilly, curry leaves & dried chilly. Let them get sauteed well till the onions turn brown and slightly crisp. Turn off the stove and add the seasoning to the curd rice. Mix well and transfer to the lunch box.

Sambar Rice

Friday...a lazy day in Middle East..As usual we went to the park early in the morning...the kids played as much as they want..then the men headed off to the swimming pool..while the women wandered around the park..my daughter babbling about every bird and squirrel that passed by...And by noon, we are back home, all energized.

Friday is one day that I feel so lazy about ccoking...mainly because its the day hubby is at home and rather than spending time in kitchen its much better if we can chat and watch TV. But somehow I was all in the mood to cook, and there comes the suggestion.. "I feel like having some Sambar rice with curd". I was more than happy...no need to cook too many dishes, just make Sambar & rice and mix up all together..

I am unsure as to whether this is the authentic way of making sambar rice. We love it this way and it tastes heavenly with curd...can be had either for lunch or dinner, also makes a super lunch box item. 

Ingredients

Toor daal - 1 cup

Vegetables (cleaned, washed & cut in desired shape) - 2 cups (its better to avoid lady's finger & drumstick while making sambar rice)

Sambar powder - 3 tbsp (I use Brahmin's)

Coconut oil - 1 tbsp

Tamarind - size of a lemon (soaked in some water for 10 min and extract the juice)

Salt - as per taste

Turmeric powder -  a pinch

Small onions - 3-4

Tomato - 2 (cleaned and diced)

For tempering

Coconut oil - 1 tbsp

Mustard seeds - 1/2 tsp

Asafoetida powder - 1/2 tsp

Dried chilly - 2

Curry leaves - 1 sprig

Sambar powder - 1 tsp

White rice - 2 cups (I used Jeerakasala rice)

[Clean rice under running water and cook the rice till its half cooked. Keep it aside]

Method

Wash and clean toor daal under running water. Pressure the cleaned dal with 3 cups of water, a pinch of turmeric powder and salt. Cook till its done (I normally cook for 1 whistle on high flame, and 4 whistles on low flame). Let the pressure gets released. After that, open the lid and smash the dal.

Meanwhile clean and cut all the veggies. Heat a kadai, add 1 tbsp of oil. Once hot, add the small onion and the veggies. Let is saute for a while. Sprinkle some salt. Now add 2 tbsp sambar powder and saute till a nice aroma comes. Add the tamarind extract and the diced tomatoes. Saute till tomatoes starts to lose its shape. Now add the sauteed veggies to the cooked dal, add some more water if required. Add the half cooked rice also to this and cook till the veggies and rice and cooked well. 

Tempering

Once sambar and rice is cooked well, take another pan and heat 1 tbsp of coconut oil. Once hot, crackle mustard seeds. Add dried chilly, curry leaves and saute for a while. Now sprinkle the sambar powder & asafoetida powder and immediately switch off the stove. Stir in this to the sambar - rice mixture. Keep it closed for sometime for the flavours to set in. 

Serve it hot with some thick curd and pappad!!