Nepalese Vegetable Pulao

love4culinary's Note:

This is a lovely dish that is pretty easy to put together, and is full of flavor. :)

• Total Time: 50 mins
• Prep Time: 20 mins
• Cook Time: 30 mins

Ingredients:

Servings: 4

• 1 ¼ cups basmati rice
• 1⁄3; teaspoon cumin seed , to your desire
• ½ teaspoon turmeric , to your desire
• 1 bay leaf
• 6 whole cloves
• 2 black cardamom pods
• ¼ teaspoon cinnamon
• ½ teaspoon ginger , finely minced
• 1 teaspoon garlic , finely minced
• 3 green chilies , sliced in half
• 1 large yellow onion , chopped
• ½ large tomato , chopped
• ½ cup green peas
• salt , to taste
• 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
• salt

Directions:

1. Rinse rice thoroughly, and then soak it in water for about 45 minutes.
2. Heat 2 Tablespoons of oil in a pan, and add cumin seeds, allowing them to heat until they begin to change color.
3. Then add turmeric, bay leaf, cloves cardamom pods and cinnamon.
4. Then add ginger, garlic and chilies.
5. Cook on medium heat for just a minute.
6. Next, add the onion, tomato and green peas, and cook for 3 minutes.
7. Now, drain the water from rice and add rice, stirring gently for a minute to combine thoroughly.
8. Add 2 and 1/2 cup of water, and add salt to taste.
9. Cook on high heat, stirring gently but continuously.
10. When water is almost absorbed, add lemon juice.
11. Lower your heat, cover the pan, and allow it to continue cooking for approximately 7 minutes or so, until the rice is completely cooked.
12. Serve immediately.

Reviews

[browniepie]

I cooked 5 cups of rice and increased all of the ingredients. I think I may have used a little too much water, because my rice was just a touch overcooked. I think if I would have followed the recipe exactly it probably would have turned out better, but the flavor was still good. I wanted to try this dish for company and they seemed to like it despite the overcooked rice. By the way, I also added a couple of potatoes in there and I think next time I'll add some red chili powder just for that extra kick!

[sugarpea]

So many flavors, so much pleasure. We both loved this. Used fresh tomatoes and snap peas and believe the flavor was really heightened by the chiles. I made one substitution - green cardamom - don't have black. Nice recipe.

[Charishma_Ramchandani]

I cooked this for dad and myself for dinner tonight. It was a meal by itself and was wonderful with fat-free plain yogurt - very delicious! I substituted the green chillies with 1/2 tsp. of red chilli powder and I used green cardamoms instead of black ones since I didn't have those on hand. Also, I used 1 1/2 cups of greenpeas, 1 tbsp. of cumin seeds, 2 cloves of garlic, 1 inch cinnamon stick, 1 tsp. of ginger and 2 Roma tomatoes instead of 1/2 a large one. Other than that, since I'd increased the quantity of peas, I had to use 1 1/2 cups more of water than stated in the recipe. I used 1 1/2 tsps. of salt for this dish. The only ingredient I didn't have on hand was lemon and hence I couldn't add lemon juice to this. I don't think it's really required because this rice dish is WONDERFUL just as it is:) Thanks Angela for a nice dinner;-)!