Soya Spring Onion Pulav

There is this wonderful thing about food... it always brings back the lovely memories that are attached to it. I have some fond memories attached to a lot of food and everytime I happen to enjoy that particular food, those memories come flooding in. 

So, today I am taking you back in time to my college days with this simple and flavourful rice preparation.

College days are one of those best days for most of us. Those care-free days of fun laughter and friendship and a little studies in between ;) I had my own little group of friends and we made sure our years together was simply awesome! Oh, and the lunch hour was our favourite! :)

We would sit together in our benches and inspect each other's boxes. Yes, our own lunches were savoured, but what interested each of us was what was in the other's boxes! :) We each had a favourite from each other's mom's cooking and we would get all excited when we saw that in their lunch box! One of my friend's mum used to make this absolutely yummy rice preparation that had soya and spring onions in it. We simply could not guess that wonderful spice-flavour that went in to. After much guessing, she revealed that the magic masala was sambar powder!! 

It intrigued me and I have tried recreating it at home for my mum. Yes, I was fond of cooking even back then and did occasional visits to the kitchen :D So, my version was very close to my friend's mum's and my mum happened to like it too! She has hence made me make this for her and has been our favourite for a long time now. 

All along I have used the regular soya chunks that you find in the market. I would soak them into water and then after draining out the water, would finely chop them. Recently I bumped into adorable little soya granules that were shaped into teeny tiny little balls. They could be used as a whole and need not be chopped. The rice looks pretty with these little soya balls peeking from the gaps.

Try this simple recipe and enjoy the unique blend of flavours dance in your taste buds :) 

Methi Paneer Pulav | Fenugreek Leaves and Cottage Cheese Pilaf

Lately I have been pumping up the usage off fenugreek leaves in my diet. I did not have a huge liking for it early, at the same time did not detest it either... But lately, I have started loving it! I get experimental and dish out new variations using these healthy greens. I am also delighted at how inexpensive they are, in my local market here. We get a good fat bunch for less than five rupees... giving me all the more reasons to cook with them more often!

Paneer is another family favourite and also a versatile ingredient that participates in my kitchen experiments frequently :) This time, I decided to pair these two and make a one bowl meal for my work-day lunch! I love mixed rice preparations. No hassle of a side dish and main dish - just a one bowl dish with either a bowl of raita, some chips or just yummilicously plain as it is! This recipe is aboslutely easy and quick to make. Perfect for those hurried lunch days! :)

I have also been wanting to try the Garam Masala powder that I received from ASA, as part of our goodies bags at the Indian Food Bloggers Meets, in August. The smell was absolutely captivating and I was sure it would take my humble recipe to a all new foodie pedestal... and it sure did!! The aroma and taste that it imparted to the simple dish was pure deliciousness. Another brand of Garam Masala would work too for this recipe, but since I had this wonderful spice mix in hand, I simply had to use it!

Sweet Corn and Methi Pulav

It has been a while since I posted a recipe here. The last month was hectic for me and at the same time very exciting! I conducted my first baking workshop for kids and had a whole lot of fun in the process :) Loads of planning and preparation went in before the event and loads of cleaning up and learning went in post the event. As a whole, it was a memorable experience :) I will share more about it in my next post and will share some pictures too! So, stay tuned for that :)

So, the recipe for today is a very simple fragrant rice that goes really well with a spicy side. I had made this quite a while back, but as I told you I got really busy and had to keep this aside to post until I found sometime for blogging. 

I made this as part of my lunch menu one day, when I had guests over. Some of them were on a no-onion, no-garlic.. and no-carrot diet! As these are major flavour givers in most dishes, I did not want this restriction to limit my cooking. Hence, I tried various other combination to come up with some simple yet tasty dishes. This rice preparation is one of them.

A combination of sweet peas, fenugreek leaves, coconut milk and very basic spices, gives this pulav a good balance of flavours making it a good and an interesting replacement for the usual vegetable pulav. I served this with dal and a mint potatoes. The guests were happy :)

 

Thai Green Fried Rice | Simple Thai Cooking

 

Last weekend, I had my brother and sis-in-law over for lunch and as per their request, I prepared the Thai Green Curry that they loved from one of my previous lunch parties at home. They enjoyed it, just as much as they did last time. It was a lovely weekend with family over a lovely meal.

 

Then came a weekday. The kind which has mornings jam-packed with activity from making breakfast to putting on finishing touches to the lunch, then packing it, getting ready to work and finally managing to get out of the house on time! I usually plan the lunch the previous night, and try and prep up whatever possible before the morn. But the previous evening we were out and I had not much time for my prep ritual.

 

So I remembered, I had made myself a batch of the Thai Green Curry Paste over the weekend and as always, made some extra which I stored away in my deep freezer for later use. Yay! I decided it had to be put to use sooner than I had planned to. I had all the ingredients for the Thai Green Fried ice recipe that I had read in Tarla Dalal's book. So, Thai Green Fried Rice it was for lunch the next day!

 



The previous night, all I got to do was chop all the veggies needed for the dish. The next morning, it took me only 20 minutes to put this dish together. The taste was delightful and I was glad the Green Curry Paste came to my rescue on wha would have otherwise been a clueless workday morning! :)

Okay, so in spite of the mad rush of that morning, I had to click some pictures!! So yes, these pictures were clicked amidst the madness that happened on that workday morning, while I was waiting for hot water to fill in for my bath :P hehe!!

Mushroom Buttered Fried Rice | 15-mins meal idea

 

I LOVE meals that get done in 15-20 minutes.

 

By meals I am talking about oh-that-was-yummy-in-my-tummy-cant-beleive-it-was-made-in-a-jiffy kind of meal and not the okay-here-is-just-something-to-fill-my-hungry-tummy kind.

 

Something that is wholesome, delicious and easy to prepare.

 

Many a days, I am in this fix of not being able to decide what to cook for lunch to take to office with me the next day. As much as I love an elaborate meal with a main, a dry serve-along and a gravy dish, I prefer one-bowl meals for the ease of preparation as well as to carry along, to work. The ellaborate meals are for the weekends. This is precisely the reason why I love rice variations with loads of veggies, simple spices and different flavours in every variation.

 

And these rice dishes usually get prepared without much fore thought. They just develop based on the ingredients available and my mood while I am cooking it!! :D

 

 



It was around 20 minutes to 9 pm on a weekday sometime last week. Which meant my favourite show on air currently, Masterchef Australia would begin soon. That being the only show I watch with interest on television these days, I didn't want to miss it for anything. So without wasting another minute, I just put on my 'think-cooking' cap and began tossing in ingredients into the wok and the recipe simply unfolded itself! :D

 

What resulted was a fragrant buttered rice with some deliciously supple mushrooms in it. I love the flavour of mushrooms cooked in butter, its a wonderful pairing. If you are a mushroom lover and haven't tried this combination yet, it is time you treated yourself. Try it, sure you will agree :)

Quick-fix Kadai Biryani (without pressure cooker) | Ready in 30 mins

I love simple biryanis. The ones with just right flavours, not too mild and not too overpowering. And the amount of vegetables that goes into it also matters to me. It shouldn't be overdone  yet I like my biryani to have decent amount of veggies in it. I have always had a notion in my head that biryani is a complex dish and one that needs loads of ingredients and cooking time! This has made me shy away from trying them at home as I prefer to keep my cooking simple and quick. Hence, biryani has been a dish that we used to order in from a local eatery. 

It was only 2 days back that I made an impulsive decision of making my own biryani at home! I have no clue what made me go for it, especially at 8 in the night after a long working day! But there I was gathering my ingredients on the kitchen counter. I had it all planned up in my head, all that was left to do was... COOK! :D My version uses simple ingredients and follows a super easy method.

So well, I wanted my biryani to have generous helping of potatoes as that was one veggie we both love in any form and then I wanted paneer in too. Those were the only two major players I had in my mind. Green Peas and Sweetcorn just found their way in as I began cooking!! Yeah, that's how my cooking happens, the recipe unfolds itself as the cooking progresses :)

I did not want to use a pressure cooker as I wanted the rice grains to be nice and fluffy and wanted to monitor it as it cooks, hence opted to cook in a kadai. As the cooking commenced, the fragrance was mighty tempting and to my greatest joy, it was done so quickly! The final product was simply super... way beyond what I had in mind :) 

On popular demand, the recipe was repeated last night,... yes it was that YUMMY! :D

Bisibelle Bath | Sambar Rice | Quick-fix recipe

Bisi-belle-bath literally translates into translates to hot lentil rice in Kannada. It is a traditional dish originated in Karnataka and the authentic preparation is supposedly quite an elaborate process. The basic ingredients are rice and toor dal with a whole lot of vegetables and spices. The final product is usually semi-liquid and spicy and eaten best with pappad, roasted potatoes or onion raita.

In our canteen, back during my college days in Tamil Nadu, we used relish this delicious Sambar Rice which I later realised is very similar to Karnataka's Bisibelle Bhat. The main difference I found between the two was that Bisibelle Bath was more elaborate on the spices and was a tab more liquidy. I like mine less liquidy and as always looked for a simpler way out to make this dish! 

So, here is my take on this traditional dish with tweaks to suit my preference. A lot more spices go into the tradition dish, but here I have simplified the spices to just Sambar powder/Bisibelle Bath powder making the preparation is pretty simple.  

Pumpkin & Corn Tawa Pulav with Coconut Milk

Of late I have developed a liking for the FoodFood channel. Some of the shows aired on it are pretty interesting that showcases just my kind of recipes! By my kind of recipes I mean unique combos, simple to make recipes with easily available ingredients. So here is a beautiful recipe I saw yesterday. It is a Sanjeev Kapoor's recipe and the gradients of yellow in it caught my attention immediately. I just had to try it in my kitchen at the earliest. Voila, here I am with my version of it :)



As always, I cannot stick to a recipe without making a few personal twists :P So to this delicious pulav, I added a measure of coconut milk and the outcome was truly delightful. The sweetness of coconut milk gave the pulav an awesome aroma and taste.

I usually cook pulav in a pressure cooker. Cooking in a tawa gives you complete control of how much you want the rice to cook. I am starting to love this method of making pulav :) Try it, you would agree!



Sprouted Moong and Coconut Rice

Frankly speaking, this wasn't a planned recipe (well, like most of my other recipes :P ) I was not in a mood to cook an elaborate meal that day and hence settled to make some kind of variety rice. Now, I just happened to have sprouted moong sitting in my fridge which needed to be finished. And since I did not have many other vegetables to put into my rice, I chose to team sprouted moong with coconut!

Well, I was skeptical of the final product myself, but hey, it turned out to be interesting! :D

The crunchiness of the sprouts with the slight sweetness of the coconut gave an interesting flavour to the rice. And the best part... it had not much chopping! I hate cutting veggies, when I am not in a mood to cook! :P

You could add in any other vegetables in this if you like. This by itself is a healthy combo packed with proteins and nutrition.

Channa Pulav | Chickpea Pilaf

As I said before, I just love variety rice and look for different combos! As much as I love variety rice, I like Channa too. So the thought crept into my head... why not put the two together?! :)

This is a very nutritious rice variant and to bring in some new flavours, I have used a mildly spiced gravy of coconut and onions instead of the usual blend of onions and tomatoes for the Channa gravy. Trust me, this combo is heavenly... I relished this rice to the very last grain! :)

Since the rice itself is very flavourful, it does not need an elaborate accompaniment. A simple raita or pappad would do. Left to me... I would yum this up as is... as the flavours are really good!

Try it.... to experience it! :)



Broccoli Stir-fry Rice

I am pretty fond of rice varieties. From the humble Coconut Rice, Tamarind Rice to some exotic Biriyanis and Fried Rices. Well, the options are plenty. The rice preparation at home, depends on how much time I have in hand, how hungry we are or sometimes it just depends on what my pantry has to offer to me!

Last Saturday, pantry needed replenishing and there were not much veggies for choice. I just had a nice big floret of Broccoli, some spring onions and a huge capsicum, besides the must-haves onions and tomatoes.

That is how this Broccoli Stir-fry Rice happened and I teamed it up with a scrumptious Capsicum Burji. Its a yummy from my Grand-aunt's kitchen... its a definite keeper! :)



Hariyali Pulav | Green Pulav

Being an enthusiastic foodie blogger these day, you would find me eagerly collecting interesting recipes from friends and family and trying my hands at them with some personal touches here and there. 

Once, way before I started my foodie blog, I had once visited my cousin Seema, for lunch. She is  known to be an amazing cook with her own cookery blog, which you can find here. So of course..., we were looking forward to the scrumptious meal that awaited us! As expected, the food was out of the world! One particular dish caught my attention the most. So flavorful, aromatic and with an appetizing appeal to it... there was this Green Pulav she had made.

I had then and there asked her for the recipe and mentally made a note of it and went home and conveniently forgot it :( 

Just a few days back, I wrote to her yet again asking her for the recipe, thanks to my blog I did not put it away this time! With minor tweaks here and there, I had my version of the yummilicious Green Pulav! :) Next time around, I am going to make her version, by following it to the T. For now, here it is...

Baby Corn Pulav

Last sunday we had guests coming over and as I said in my earlier post, I tried out a new dish using Palak, Alu Palak Fry. There did not stop my experiments in the kitchen that day, as I was on a cooking spree. The main course and dessert too were first timers.

Baby Corn Pulav pleased me to bits :) 

Visually appealing, quick and easy to prepare, this delectable dish is perfect for lunch parties and getogethers. It has made its way into my favourites list.  With ideas and tips from Sharmispassions, I managed to churn out this interesting rice variety.

Mexican Stir-Fry Rice

Ingredients:

Rice - 1 cup (long grained, cooked)

Rajma (Kidney Beans) - 1 cup (boiled)

Capsicum - 1 medium (sliced length wise)

Onion - 1 medium (sliced length wise)

Tomato - 1 small (cut into small pieces)

Green Peas - 1 cup

Red Chilli Powder - 1 tsp

Turmeric Powder - 1/2 tsp

Ginger-Garlic Paste - 1/2 tsp

Salt - to taste

Oil - 1 tblsp

Method:

• Heat oil in a pan and saute onions till golden brown. Keep aside.
• In the same pan, add ginger-garlic paste and capsicum and fry for a while.
• Now add in the peas, tomato, turmeric powder, chilli powder, salt. Mix well.
• Finally add in the cooked rice and gently combine all the ingredients. Serve with potato chips.

Nansicum-Riceburg!

Ingredients:

Capsicum - 3 big 

Potato - 2 medium sized (boiled and mashed)

Onion - 1 medium (sliced length wise)
Paneer - 1/2 cup (crushed)

Red Chilli Powder - 1 tsp

Turmeric Powder - 1/2 tsp

Garam Masala Powder - 1 tsp
Ginger-Garlic Paste - 1/2 tsp

Cumin Seeds - 1 tsp
Mint Leaves - a few
Rice - 1 cup (cooked)
Salt - to taste

Oil - 1 tblsp

Method:

• Heat oil in a pan and add in the cumin seeds. Once they splatter, add onions and ginger-garlic paste. Saute onions till golden brown. 
• Add mashed potatoes, crushed paneer, turmeric powder, chilli powder, garam masala powder and salt. Mix well, take it off the stove and keep aside.
• In the same pan, heat some more oil and add in cumin seeds, some sliced onions and mint leave. Saute for a few minutes and keep aside. (This is for garnishing.)
• Take the capsicums, cut out the top and make a hollow in it by removing the seeds.
• Stuff the capsicums with the potato mixture and keep aside.
• Take a glass bowl and grease the base with oil.
• Put in the cooked rice and place the stuffed capsicums over it. Spread out the roasted onions and mint leaves garnish over the rice.
• Pre-heat the oven for 180 degree Celsius.
• Once pre-heated, place the bowl inside and cook for 15 mins.
• Nansicum-Riceburg ready! :)