Vegetable Pulao

Ingredients

1 cup basmati rice
2 cup mixed vegetables , (carrots, beans)chopped
1 tsp garam masala
¼ tsp turmeric powder
oil or ghee
1” cinnamon stick, 2 cloves, 2 cardamom

grind to paste
2 medium onions
4 cloves garlic
1” ginger
4 green chillies
Method

Soak rice for 30minutes, drain and set aside to dry.
Prepare the paste grinding the ingredients listed above.
Heat oil/ghee in a pan or wok, called kadai in Hindi. Add cinnamon, cloves and cardamom and fry for a minute
Add the paste and fry under low flame. Add just enough oil so that the paste does not stick to the kadai. Fry until the oil comes out on the sides of the pan. i.e the raw smell goes off approx 20minutes
Add turmeric powder and garam masala and stir for 2 more minutes. Add rice and fry for 2 minutes. Now add the vegetables and fry for another 2 minutes.
Transfer the contents to the pressure cooker. Add 2 cups of water to the empty kadai and bring it to a boil. This helps you to get all the stuff from the kadai and also cleans the kadai. Add boiling water to the pressure cooker. Add salt and stir. I add water double the quantity of your rice, adjust water quantity according to your rice. Use the same proportion of water that you would use to make your rice otherwise.
Close the lid of the pressure cooker lid and cook to your desired level. I cook for 3 whistles

Tips : Let the cooker cool down on its own. Do not hurry to open the lid. After the pressure comes down, open the lid and let the rice cool down for another 30mins before you insert the spoon. Hot rice will get smashed down easily and the pulao may get mushy.

This is just a variation in the making with same ingredients. Instead of grinding the onions, green chillies, garlic and ginger into paste and frying, you can just reverse the process. First fry these ingredients and grind into paste. This just helps you to judge better when to stop frying.

For a quick pulao, do not grind onions and green chillies to paste. Use red chili powder instead of green chillies. Use ginger garlic paste if you have it ready. Finely chop onions. Fry onions and ginger garlic paste.

This recipe serves 2 people