I love fresh mint. The aroma of this herb can energize me and I often include this in my cooking. I was thinking what to pack for my kids lunch and immediately the bag of mint came to my rescue. within the next 40 min I had a tasty pulao ready. My daughter came sniffing, "Are you making something with pudina? ..... yummy." Both my kids came back with empty lunch boxes and my son said "I liked the green rice Ma."
I make similar kinds of pulao all the time. After starting the preparations, came to know that I ran out of garlic (I prefer using freshly ground ginger and garlic for the flavor and aroma) and so used store bought ginger garlic paste. Sometimes I add coconut and sometimes I don't. Today I added a liitle of cilantro too (I had 2 bunches in hand), the end result was yummy! Back to the recipe-
Ingredients:
Basmati Rice - 1 cup
Mint / Pudina leaves - 1 cup, packed
Carrot - 1 cup, diced
Onion - 3/4 cup, thinly sliced
Ginger garlic paste - 2 tsp
Peas - 1/2 cup (fresh or frozen)
Cilantro leaves - 1/4 cup
Coconut - 1/4 cup grated
Green chilli - 2
Water - 2 cups
salt - 1/2 tsp
Seasoning:
Oil - 2tbsp
Cinnamon - 1 in. piece
Cardamom - 1
Clove - 1
Bay leaf - 1
Star anise - 1
Black cardamom - 1
Method:
Wash the rice and soak for 10-15 min. In the meantime, wash the carrots and pudina leaves. Chop the onion and carrots. Make a paste of cilantro, coconut, pudina and 1 green chilli with 1/2 cup water. Heat a pan, add the seasonings, fry them for a minute. Then add the onions, 1 green chilli slit lengthwise, ginger garlic paste and cook till onions are soft. Drain the basmati rice and fry for a min. or two till you get nice aroma. Add the veggies and salt. Now mix water with ground pudina paste, make it to 2 cups and add it to rice mixture. Mix well, check and adjust salt if needed, cover and cook on a med - low flame for 10 min. Then lower the flame to low and cook for 10 min. By now the rice and veggies are all cooked perfectly. Switch off the flame, mix thoroughly once and leave it covered for another 10 min. Steaming Pudina pulao is ready to be served.
Try my recipe and let me know!
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