Recipe - Vegetable Pulao

Rice cooked with vegetables and some simple spices

Summary:

Pulao is a rice dish with vegetables similar to biryani. Pulao is cooked together with rice and other ingredients. On the other hand, in biryani preparation rice is cooked and then mixed with the rest of the ingredients. Hyderabad biryani is very popular and part of mughali cuisine. I love vegetable biryani and can't get enough as it reminds me of my hometown.

I cook pulao and biryani in the similar way but with a little different spice combination. I use basmati rice for cooking biryani or pulao instead of long grain or other rice. I skip adding turmeric to pulao, to give it a different color than biryani.

Ingredients:

• Rice - 1 cup
• Onions - 1 cup (cut length wise)
• Tomatoes - 1/2 cup (cut length wise)
• Carrots - 1/2 cup (diced)
• Beans - 1/4 cup (cut length wise/diced)
• Peas - 1/4 cup
• Potato - 1 cup ( 1 medium size cut length wise)
• Oil - 1 tablespoon

Spice mixture:

Grind all the below ingredients together and set them aside

• Ginger - 1 tablespoon
• Garlic - 1 tablespoon
• Mint leaves - 3 - stalks ( 1 table spoon paste - optional)
• Coconut - 1/4 cup (grated)
• Cloves powder - 1/4 teaspoon (3 nos)
• Cinnamon powder - 1/2 teaspoon ( 1 inch)
  
• Salt - 1 and 1/2 teaspoon
• Green chillies - 1 serrano (1 Indian green chili)

Process

Preheat a pan with oil at medium high temperature. Add onions, fry them for a minute or two. Add rest of the vegetables, fry them for 5 minutes.

Add the above spice mixture to the vegetables.

Add washed uncooked rice and stir well.

Add 2 cups or little less water to rice, add salt to taste. Bring the rice to a boil.

Simmer the stove, cook it for 20 minutes.


Serve hot with any kind of gravy vegetable.

Preparation time: 30 minutes
Servings: 4