Vegetable pulav

This is Venkatesh’s recipe, few years back when i was still learning the basics of cooking he taught me how to make this pulav. I loved it so much that i make it atleast once a month. What makes this pulav special is we grind our spices fresh right before we make the pulav. Whenever we have family or friends coming over I make this pulav and everyone enjoys it as much as we do. Cucumber raita compliments this spicy pulav very well.

You need:
(Serves 2 to 3 people)

• 1 cup Basmati Rice
• 2 cups of veggies ( beans, potato, peas, carrot and cauliflower)
Roughly about- 15 to 20 beans, 1 medium potato. ¼ cup green peas, 1 carrot and 6 florets of cauliflower)
• ½ cup chopped tomato
• Chopped medium sized onion - 1/2
• Vegetable oil- 3 tbsps
• Lemon juice and salt.
• Water- 1 3/4th cup

Dry spices:

• Small bay leaves- 4
• Cardamom- 4
• ½ inch Cinnamon stick or 1/ 2 tsp cinnamon powder
• Cloves- 6
• Cumin seeds- 1 tsp
• Coriander seeds- 1 ½ tsp
• Turmeric powder- 1/4th tsp

Wet masala ingredients:

• Small green chillies- 6
• Fresh coconut- 3 tbsps
• Garlic cloves- 3
• Ginger – ½ inc long
• Chopped Fresh mint- 2 tbsps
• Chopped cilantro- 1 tsp

If you happen to have ginger garlic paste from store you can use ½ tsp of it.

For tempering:

Few cashews fried in oil/ ghee.

Procedure:

Grind all the dry spices except for bay leaves and keep it a side.

Now grind the wet ingredients with little bit of water (just measure how much water you have used for grinding and reduce that amount while adding water for rice, the point is the total water amount should be not be more than 1 3/4th cup. Otherwise the pulav will become too soft).

Now in a skillet add the oil, once it’s hot add the bay leaves and onion. Cook for 3 minutes till onion becomes little soft. Now add the beans and cook for a minute. Then add the dry spices, fry for 30 seconds and add the chopped tomato. Cook for 2 minutes and then add the other veggies accompanied by wet ingredients. Add some salt and let the whole mixture cook for 10 minutes in medium heat.

Then add the basmati rice with water, and stir the whole mixture together. You can finish cooking in the same pot, but I generally transfer this whole mixture to a rice cooker and I finish cooking my pulav in there.

Meanwhile in a small pan add some ghee and fry the cashews.
Sometimes I also add bread to my pulav. What I do is I cut the white bread into small cubes and fry them in little bit of oil (it will look like croutons).

Once the pulav is done, let it rest for 10 minutes, then add the fried cashew, bread and lemon juice. Taste and re season accordingly and enjoy the pulav with cucumber raita.

Note:
• Beans take more time to cook then the other veggies. So its important to add beans in the beginning itself.
• You can reduce the amount of mint, If you dont want your pulav to look too green.
• In case you do want to add the fried bread, make sure its nice and crisp.

Recipe: Venkatesh

Strawberry Punch

Recently when we had a party, one of our close family friends Rohini made this strawberry punch. It was so good that I ended up drinking quite a bit of it.

Not only is she a wonderful person, she is one of the great cooks I know personally.

Thanks Rohini for sharing such a refreshing drink.

Recipe:
(Serves 4)

• About 15 strawberries
• one liter ginger ale
• Half liter bottle - sparkling soda/ club soda ( we used club soda)
• Half liter bottle - lemonade

Make puree of the strawberries and chill for few minutes in the refrigerator.
Chill the soda,ginger ale and the lemonade too.

When ready to drink, take a glass put few pieces of ice, little bit of the strawberry puree, soda and lemonade. Mix and enjoy this refreshing punch during this spring and summer times.

Note:
To Jazz it up, you can also add some slices of strawberries in the punch.

Bruschetta with tomatoes and basil

Bruschetta is a light Italian appetizer. I first tasted it when we went to Olive Garden Restaurant and just fell in love with its simple ingredients and its fresh flavors. Usually Italian bread is grilled with some extra virgin olive oil till nice and crunchy and is rubbed with a garlic clove. Then this crunchy bread is topped of with a mixture of tomato, red onion, basil, extra virgin olive oil, salt and pepper. It’s simple but ultimate satisfying.

There are different ways of making bruschetta, some add cheese and different kinds of peppers. But the classic way is with the ingredients which I mentioned above.

Recipe:

A loaf of Italian bread

• Red Plum tomato- 6 to 7
• Red onion- 1 ½ tbsp chopped finely
• Small yellow or green bell pepper - 2 tbsp chopped fine (optional)
• Fresh basil- 2 tbsp
• Extra virgin olive oil- 2 tbsps
• Small garlic clove- 1
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• Dry Italian seasoning- 2 pinches (optional)

Combine all the above ingredients except for bread and let it sit for ten minutes. This helps the tomato to release some of its juices and get incorporated with the others ingredients.

Mean while cut the bread into half inch slices, apply extra virgin olive oil on to it and grill both sides. You can also use a toaster oven to toast the bread. Once toasted, remove and rub it with a garlic clove. Then put the tomato mixture on top of the bread and enjoy this light snack.

This is my entry to JFI: Tomato hosted by RP of MY Workshop