Pudina Rice/Mint Rice

 Mint rice/ Pudina rice is the easiest and tastiest lunch I have cooked so far. It hardly takes  10 min to prepare this but the final dish is awesomely tasty . Mint has an appetizing effect and is a good source of Iron and Vitamin C. Now  get ready to make this refreshing dish .

Ingredients :

Basmati Rice -1 1/2 cup

Mint - 1 Cup tightly packed

Coriander -1/4 Cup

Green Chillies -3

Grated Coconut - 3 tbsp

Cashews -10 Nos

Onion - Finely Chopped

Ginger Garlic -1 tbsp

Ghee + oil -tbsp

Method

1) Soak the Basmathi Rice in water for 1/2 hour.

2)Fry cashews in ghee to golden brown and keep it aside.In the same pan fry the grated coconut and keep aside.

3)Make a paste of Pudina and Coriander with the green chilies.

4)Heat oil in a pan,add the chopped onions and ginger garlic paste and saute.

5)Add the green paste (Pudina + Coriander) in this and saute for 3 to 4 min till the raw smell goes away.
 

6)Add the soaked and drained rice and fried coconut to this and mix it gently .

7)Transfer it to rice cooker and add 1 3/4 cups of water /cup of rice . Add 1 tbsp of oil on the top.**

8)You can do the entire process in pressure cooker as well by adding 2 cups of water /1 cup of rice and cook for 3 whistles.

9)Serve it with Raitha :)

Notes.

1)I have tested that my rice cooker takes 1 1/2 cups of water for 1 cup of rice to cook it nice and fluffy. If your rice cooker demands less or more amount of water go ahead with your measurements.

2)Adding oil before cooking rice is a very important step in any rice preparations. This will prevent the rice from sticking to each other.

3)Taste the water after adding salt to the rice mixture at the end. If the salt level is correct ,it will just perfect when the rice is cooked.

4) I wanted the flavour of mint to be dominant in my dish and so din't add any other spice  other spice powder. You can add  if you wish.

5) You can add a boiled and cubed potato to this recipe. It will add to the taste of the mint rice.

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Paneer Butter Masala

                 Paneer butter masala is a delicious Punjabi dish made with Paneer/cottage cheese.It is one of the commonly found menu item in most of the restaurants. I used to think it is a tedious process to make until I learnt the recipe. It goes perfect with Jeera rice, peas pulao or even plain rice and even tastes great with butter nan,kuchas, rotis and phulkas.This recipe is cream based as the name suggests. Diet conscious people can replace fresh cream with milk and try this recipe. So here is the recipe of India's most popular Paneer gravy.

             

Ingredients:

Fresh Paneer Cubes - Few

Butter - 1/4 Stick

Onions - Finely chopped ***

Tomatoes - 2 (chopped and pureed)

Ginger Garlic Paste - 1 Tbsp

Bay Leaf - 1

Cardamom - 3 to 4

Cashews - 8 to 10

Cumin-Corriander Powder - 2 tbsp

Garam Masala - 1 Tbsp

Red Chilli Powder - 1 Tbsp

Turmeric - 1 Tbsp

Fresh Cream - 1 cup

Milk - 1/4 Cup

Generous Pinch of Kasuri methi

Salt to taste

Method :

1) Cube the Paneer and put in warm water to make them soft (You can skip this step if you Paneer is fresh ). Pierce them with fork like in the pic shown below. This is to ensure that the flavours of the gravy goes inside the Paneer.

2) Heat the kadai with butter and 1 tbsp of oil.

3) Put a bay leaf, few cardamon and saute till aroma comes. Then add onion and ginger garlic paste and saute till the raw smell goes.

4) Add the tomato Puree to till and saute till the colour changes to dark red.

5) To this add turmeric, cumin-corriander powder, red chilli powder and salt. Saute for 3 to 4 mins.


     

6) Add the ground cashew paste to this and saute till the raw taste of the cashew goes and blends with the spice powders added.

7) Now add milk and 1/2 of fresh cream and mix well. Once the gravy starts to boil slightly, add the panner cubes to this.

8) Add 1/4 cup of water and bring the gravy to boil so that the spices get infused into the paneer cubes.

   


9) Once the gravy thickens and reaches the required consistency, give a lavish sprinkle of Kasoori Methi to give the restaurant touch.

10) Garnish it with fresh cream and serve with nan, roti or rice.:)

Notes:

1) Instead of adding finely chopped onions , you can saute the slightly saute the onions ,ginger and garlic,make a paste of it and then add. Since I always use readymade ginger garlic paste I do it this way.

2) Wait till the Tomoto puree added turns to dark red. This is an important step for any tomato based recipe as this gives a nice colour to your dish. Other the raw smell of the tomato will spoil the taste of the dish .

3) Diet conscious people can add only milk and avoid cream and cashew paste and use cream only for garnishing(optional).

4) Do not skip adding crushed kasoori methi as it gives a very good flavour to your gravy. Adjust the spice and chilli powder to you taste as some may not prefer the gravy to be too sweet.

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Restaurant Style Hyderabad Vegetable Dum Biriyani

                      Dum Biryani is one of the most popular cuisine of Hyderabad .Vegetable Dum Biryani is made from exotic spices and aromatic herbs blended to give a authentic taste and flavour. Dum Biryani is cooked on a slow flame to integrate the flavours of the spices added and infuse them to the naturally flavoured basmathi rice. Biryani is usually accompanied by onion raita and gravy like mirchi ka salan with lemon wedges and onion slices.Before starting this blog I posted the image of this Dum Biryani in facebook and many of my friends started asking me for the recipe. I have shared a detailed post of this recipe which is inspired from Vah chef video on preparing Vegetable Dum Biryani.

Ingredients:

Basmathi Rice -1 cup

Jeera -1Tbsp

Onions - 1/2, Sliced as rings

Vegetables - Carrot,Beans,Cauliflower,Potato cut bigger  (See the pic below)

Ginger Garlic Paste -1 Tbsp

Green Chillies -2 or 3

Yogurt -1 cup

Mint - 1/2 Bunch

Corriander - For Garnishing

Biriyani Masala Powder - 50 gms /according to the the required spice level

Red chilli Powder -1 Tbsp

Cumin Corriander Powder-2 tbsp

Fried Onions - 50 Gms

Salt to taste

Fried Bread pieces -few

Safron color water -1Tbsp

Method :

1) Soak the basmathi rice for 30 min *.
2)Heat oil in a pan .Add Jeera once the oil is hot

3) When the jeera splutters add the onions and ginger garlic paste and fry till the onions turn translucent and the raw smell of the ginger garlic paste leaves .

4) Add green chillies and saute till they are cooked.

5) Add all the vegetables ,salt, turmeric,coriander,cumin powder,red chilli powder and saute for 2 to 3 min till the vegetables are 70 % cooked.

   

5) After this add finely chopped mint ,and biriyani masala and saute till the veggies are 90% done.

6) To this add 1/2 cup of yogurt and mix well. At this stage you can see the vegetables are nicely coated with all the spices and they are almost brown in color.


                                                        

7) Keeping this mixture aside.Lets cook the rice separately to 90 % now.

8) For 1 cup of rice ,boil 2 and 1/2 cup of water with 2 tbsp of oil.Once the water starts to boil, add the soaked rice .

9) In mean time,add a layer of this vegetable mixture in a wide pan .

10) In 3 to 4 min ,the rice will be more than half done. When you feel that the rice is 80 % done slowly start transferring the rice using a strainer to the wide pan which has a layer of vegetables.

11) Spread another layer of vegetables on the top of this rice layer.To this ,sprinkle the fried onions and the remaining yogurt.

12) By now, the remaining rice would have got cooked to 90 to 95 %.Transfer it to the vegetable layer in the pan

14) Now sprinkle saffron color water over this rice randomly.

15) Place a towel (which will absorb moisture)on the pan and cover the pan with a lid. If the lid cover doesn't fit tight , place some weight on the top of the lid.

16) Place this pan over another wide mouth vessel( which will accommodate this pan) filled with some water in the base

17) Simmer the flame and let this cook in steam so that spice of the vegetables and the flovors get infused into the rice.

18) After 10 to 15 min , check if the rice is soft and cooked well . 

19)Add the fried bread pieces on the top,garnish with chopped coriander leaves and little of fried onions.

19) Cut through the layers of biriyani and serve it with raitha or kurma

Notes:

1)Vegetables to Biriyani should be cut bigger than the usual size. 

2)Soaking of rice prior to cooking is very important as far cooking any pulao or biryani .This ensures that the cooking time is reduced and the rice is cooked fluffy.

3)Adding oil to water while cooking rice prevents  the rice grains from sticking to each other.

4) You can also add some bay leaf,cinnamon sticks, cloves to the boiling  water if you still want to add spice to your cooked rice.

5) Try not to skip the fried onions part as it adds nice sweet taste and give restaurant style flavor to your biryani.

Read more "Restaurant Style Hyderabad Vegetable Dum Biriyani"

Vegetable Upma

               The hot steaming delicipus Upma is traditionally a south indian breakfast dish.It is very popular mainly because of its ease of preparation. Though the main ingredient being semoina/sooji or rava ,it can be made healthy and colourful by adding  some fresh cut vegetables. It is served with cocunut chutney or sometimes with sambhar . Here follows the recipe.

Ingredients:

Rava /Sooji/Semolina -1 Cup

Water -1 1/2cup (+ 1/2 cup buffer)

Chopped Onion

Chopped Vegetabls: carrot,beans ,capsicum and grean peas

Milk -2 tbsps (Optional)

Green Chillies -3 nos

Ghee -2 tbsps

Ginger -I inch piece finely chopped

salt to taste

Coriander for garnishing

Asafoetida - a pinch

For the seasoning:

Mustard - 1/2 tsp

Urad dal - 1/2 tsp

Curry Leaves : few strands

Oil - 1 tbsp

Method :

1)Dry roast sooji well in a kadai till you get a nice aroma. When the rava turns slightly reddish in color, you can transfer it to a plate to cool down. Since I had bought double roasted sooji, I skipped this step. 

2)Heat oil in a pan . When the oil is hot enough add the above mentioned seasoning items once the mustard splutters. 

3)Add the chopped onions and saute till they become translucent.To this ,add chopped ginger and green chilies and saute for 2 min . 

4)Add the chopped veggies and saute them well until they are cooked and soft .You can sprinkle some water to speed up the process.(Do not overcook as the vegetables will again cook when you add water later ). 

5)Add 1 and 1/2 cups of water to this ,required salt,turmeric , asofoetida , 2 tbsps of milk (optional)and bring it to boil.After adding rava , the rava will quickly absorb the water and it becomes thick. Do not panic, the rava is getting cooked by absorbing water .
Once the water boils ,add the roasted sooji little by little and mix well without any lumps. 

6)Add 1 tpsp of oil initially and keep stirring.Then add 2 tbsp of ghee and stir forming a ball like and till it doesn't stick to the kadai. Your vegetable upma is ready to serve . 

7)Serve this hot ,steaming upma with coconut chutney topping it with a tbsp of ghee.Tips.
Adding 2 tbsps of milk to Upma makes it very soft and gives a bright ' white ' color to the Upma (incase you don't add turmeric). 

 
8)The amount of water required for upma sometimes depend on the quality of sooji/rawa .I usually add 1 and 1/2 cup of water initially. If you feel the rava is not cooked enough, then add the remaining water that we have kept as buffer by sprinkling and constant stirring. 

 
9)After you add salt to the boiling water ,taste the water to adjust the salt level for your upma. In case after you add sooji, you find the salt is less, dissolve salt in little amount of water and sprinkle it over the rava and stir well so that salt mixes well.

                             

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Pesarattu / Green Gram Dosa

               Pesarattu or Green Gram Dosa is a very easy breakfast dish and high in nutrition.This dish owes its origin to Andra pradesh and I learnt this recipe from my mother-in-law. I got introduced to this dish when I went to Tirupathi once.It is served with Upma or Kichadi in the centre of the Pesarratu dosa. It is served with Allum Chutney /Ginger Chutney or Cocunut chutney.With this introduction,lets take a look at the recipe now.

                                      

Preparation Time : 20 min

Soaking Time: Overnight

Ingredients:

Green Gram / Payaru :1 Cup.

Raw Rice : 2 or 3 tbsp

Ginger : 2 pieces

Onions : Chopped fnely

Green Chilli : 3 or 4

Asofetida : generous pinch.

Salt : To taste:

Method:

1) Soak the Green Gram overnight along with 2 tbsps of rice.

2)Next day morning,grind the mixture in a Mixie along with a piece of ginger and required salt.Grind it to dosa batter consistency.To this batter add finely chopper coriander leaves and asofoetida and mix well.

   .

3)Heat the dosa tawa and spread the batter as you do for a dosa.Sprinkle the chopped onion on  the top. Turn it on both the sides until cooked and crisp.

4)Serve with Ginger chutney or coconut chutney.

                                          

Notes :

1)You can use 2 Tbsps of rice flour instead of Raw rice.I have tried both ways and din't find any difference in taste. Rice flour is added to give crispness to your dosa. 

2)I have served with Coconut Coriander Chutney.The preferred combination is Ginger Chutney or jaggery.

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Paruppu Vadai/Masal Vadai

               Paruppu Vadai is the often prepared on festival days as an offering to God.If onions are added to the same paruppu vadai batter,then it becomes Masal vadai and tastes yummy as a tea time snack.Everytime the weather is gloomy,I will ask my mom to prepare masal vadai or onion pakora. The joy of sipping hot chai with an alternate bite of masala vadai ,that too sitting in the balcony on a rainy day is awesome. Here is the recipe for the crispy Masal vadai.

                                       


Cooking time :20 min

Yield : 10 to 12 vadai

Ingredients:

Kadalai Parupu / Channa Dal : 1 1/2 cup

Toor Dal -2 tbsp

Raw rice -2 tbsp

Onions : 1 ,finely chopped

Ginger -1 inch piece,finely chopped 

Green chilli :3

Hing: a generous pinch

Coriander leaves :Finely chopped

Curry Leaves : Few

Salt :To taste

Oil :For frying

Method:

1) Soak Channa dal ,Toor dal and rice for minimum 2 hrs.

2) Keep aside some Channa Dal and grind the rest of the dal along with rice,green chillis and ginger in a mixie to a fine texture by just sprinkling water if necesssary. The batter should be thick . 

3) Now just give a pulse to the remaining channa dal and add this to the mixture. The batter should look like the picture below:

 

4) To the ground batter add the chopped onions. coriander leaves,curry leaves ,hing and salt and mix well.

5) Pat a ball of dough on a plastic cover and transfer it to the hot oil in the kadai.

 

6) Transfer to the plate when the vadai is golden brown. Try out and give your comments.

Tips:

1) You can add 2 tbsp of rice powder to the ground mixture instead of soaking the rice along with dal.

2) You can use a pinch of ginger powder instead of cut ginger if you don't prefer ginger pieces in the vadai while eating.

3)The oil should be hot enough to fry the vada otherwise the vada will absorb a lot of oil while frying.

4) Fry the vadai in medium flame only otherwise the inside of the vadai will not cook properly but it will turn brown outside quickly.

                                                                                                                                           

Read more "Paruppu Vadai/Masal Vadai"

Aalu Paratha

           Aalu Paratha is a very common breakfast dish in western,central and northern parts of India.In easy terms it is a flat bread with potato stuffing.I remember tasting an authentic one for the first time in the Punjabi dhaba near my college.This recipe comes very handy when you run short of veggies at home. Parathas are easy lunch box recipe too .It tastes best when served with chilled thick yogurt or pickle though I prefer eating it with ketchup.So Aalu Paratha recipe, here you go..

Preparation Time: 20 min

Cooking time: 10 min

Serves : 4 plates

Ingredients :

Whole Wheat flour - 2 cup

Oil: 1 Tbsp

Milk 1 2 tbsp (completely optional)

Water - For kneading the dough

For Stuffing:

Aalu/Potato : 3 to 4 medium sized potato

Onion : 1/2 finely chopped

Jeera :1 tbsp

Green Chilies :3 or 4

Salt : To taste

Red Chili Powder : 1 1/2 tsp

Garam Masala :2 Tsp

Coriander Leaves :Finely chopped

Lemon Extract :1 tbsp

** The spice and salt level are subjected to individual's taste .

Method :

1) Knead the wheat flour for paratha with 1 tbsp of salt,required water, 2 tbsp of milk and 1tsp of oil.Keep it aside for at least 15 min.

2) Boil the potato in pressure cooker for 3 to 4 whistles until it is soft. Mash the potatoes when cool.

3)Add oil to the kadai. Add jeera and once it splutters add the finely chopped onions and green chilies. Saute it until it turns translucent.To this add the mashed potatoes,spice powders,salt,chili powder and saute it for 2 or 3 min till the raw smell of the potato is gone.

4) remove from the flame ,add chopped coriander leaves and a tsp of lemon juice. Make equal sized balls out of the stuffing.

5) Roll the wheat balls roughly to 3.5 ' inch diameter circle .Take care that the corners are thin and the center is thick. Place the potato ball on this and close it from all the corners.

 


6) Dust it with wheat flour and again roll it .

7) Put it on the tawa once it is hot. Smear butter on both sides. Serve when both the sides are golden brown.

Tips:

1) I usually add 2 tbsp of milk while kneading the dough.It is completely optional.I got this tip from one of my north Indian friend .This makes the Paratha very soft and easy to roll. 

2)Don't skip to add oil as this also ensures that the dough is soft. 

3)I add 2 tsp of lemon juice as it gives a nice tangy flavor which will prevent the stuffing from being bland and dry. I personally prefer lemon juice over amchur powder. 

 
4)Make sure that the potatoes are mashed well,onions and coriander are finely cut.Otherwise the stuffing will come out while rolling the paratha.

                                                                                                                                                    

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