Vegetable Pulao

A day before, I saw the Pudina Leaves lying in the rack of Reliance Fresh. I don't often use Pudina in my day to day preparations, but thought of picking them up for some rice kind of preparation as I am a 'Rice Lover'!!

I would like to add a tip here to increase the shelf life of Pudina Leaves. Pick them up & wrap in a tissue paper & store in some air tight plastic container at the door of the refrigerator. Do not store it inside the refrigerator. It will stay fresh & green for a longer time if stored at the door.

If you are good at cutting vegetables & enjoy doing it...this is the simplest recipe & also a good and satisfying one pot meal. Generally few of them hate adding pudina to pulao or biryani coz it turns black. But I can assure you about the value it adds to the dish as mentioned in Step 7. Makes the pulao simply mintyyyy!!

Vegetable Pulao

Serves: 4                  Preparation Time: 10 mins                   Cooking Time: 10 mins

Ingredients:

1 bowl basmati rice (washed & drained)

2 tbspn oil+ 2 tbspn ghee

1 carrot cut into cubes

1 onion thinly sliced

few pieces of cauliflower (u can also use french beans if you have)

few Nutrela mini soya chunks (fried in a tsp oil, boiled, washed & drained)

1 bowl coconut milk (I had Maggi coconut milk powder so prepared the coconut milk using the same)+ 1 bowl water OR 2 bowls water

few corainder leaves & pudina leaves for garnishing

1 tej patta+ 2 cloves+ 2 peppercorns + 1 small piece of dalchini

1 tsp cumin seeds or shahjeera

1 tsp everest biryani pulao masala

salt as per taste

Ingredients

Step 1: Heat the oil & ghee in a pressure cooker.

Step 2: Add  cumin seeds, once they splutter add tej patta, cloves, peppercorns, dalchini & saute for 10-15 secs.

Step 3: Add onion & saute till they just turn transparent.

Step 4: Add rest of the veggies & soya chunks followed by salt & everest masala & saute for 2 mins on a medium heat. Add rice & mix well.

Step 5: Add coconut milk + water.

Step 6: Close the lid & let it cook on medium heat upto 2 whistles. Reduce the heat to minimum for 1 min & turn off heat.

Step 7: Let it cool. Once the steam escapes completely, open the lid, add coriander & mint leaves & run a spoon through the pulao & close again with another dish. This will give a wonderful mint flavour to the pulao which will be loved by all!!

Step 8: Its ready to be served!! 

Note: I have used the spices to suit my toddlers taste. You may increase the amount of Everest masala or other whole spices as per your choice.