My friend made this pulav for our potluck dinner. Everyone appreciated this dish and I wanted to share her recipe with some minor improvisations.
Ingredients:
1 cup of Basmati rice
1/2 cup of chickpeas
1 3/4 cup of water
10 pearl onions
3 medium tomatoes
4 red chilies chopped (per spice level)
1/2 tbsp minced ginger
2 cloves garlic
pinch of turmeric
1 tbsp of kasoori methi/ dried fenugreek leaves
1 1/2 tbsp of oil/ ghee
salt as required
Seasoning:
2 pieces of cardamom
1 inch cinnamon
3 cloves
2 small bay leaf
Preparation:
1.Soak the chickpeas overnight and pressure cook them separately with water and salt. Drain the water and keep them aside. Soak the rice in water for half an hour. In a preheated pressure pan add ghee or oil. Add the seasoning.
2.Cut the onion in half. As
the nice aroma comes, add the onions. Saute till they turn golden brown.
3.Grind the chopped tomatoes, ginger ,garlic and red chillies in to a paste. Add to the pressure pan. Saute well till the tomato paste thickens.
3.Add the cooked chickpeas, turmeric, rice, kasoori methi, salt and water. Close the lid and pressure cook them
5.Channa pulav is ready. Serve with raitha.
*To improvise add 1/4 cup of coconut milk. This definitely makes the dish rich and really delicious. Reduce the amount of water accordingly.
The specialty of this recipe is the combination of garlic and dried chillies with eggplant. The garlic has its own aroma with a spicy and sweet taste. Marinating the American eggplants help to infuse the real flavor from garlic and red pepper flakes. The addition of oil acts as the binding agent so that they mix well and easily applied on the surface of eggplant.
Ingredients:
1 medium Eggplant
olive oil for frying
4 dried red chillies
4-5 cloves of garlic
salt as required
Preparation:
1. Cut the eggplant in the middle. Then cut them in to 1/2 inch longitudinal slices.
2.Grind the red chillies in to flakes. Use the girdle to grind red chilly flakes, garlic with 1-2 tbsp of oil.
3.Marinate the eggplant with the ground paste. Sprinkle some salt.
2. In the preheated oil, add the eggplant pieces to the pan. Shallow fry both the sides till it turns golden brown.
3.Transfer to the plate. Serve as an appetizer or enjoy with rice and dhal.
Thakkali (Tomato) thokku is a spicy chutney which will definitely hit it off with Idly. This is the side dish my mom used to make for overnight train travel and so has a nostalgic feeling to me. This chutney can survive hot climate for a long time just like achaar (pickle) without any additional refrigeration.
Serves up to 3 people
Preparation time: 15 minutes
Ingredients:
3 large tomato
2 tsp of red chilly powder1 tsp of coriander powder
pinch of turmeric
1 tbsp of sesame oil
salt as required
For seasoning:
1/2 tsp of mustard
Preparation:
1. Chop the tomatoes and add the other ingredients(except oil and the seasoning) together and grind them in to a paste.
2.Heat oil in the pan and add the tomato paste.Saute well till the tomato paste starts to thicken. Switch off the flame.
3.Fry the mustard in oil and add to the tomato chutney. Serve this spicy chutney with any tiffin varieties.
