Pudina/Mint Rice

Lots have been said about Pudina's medicinal properties. Wiki has the complete biodata of the plant. :-)

Apart from its medicinal values, what we love most about pudina is its unique aroma.

An experiment by my sister with left over pudina chutney resulted in an extremely flavourful pudina rice.
Here is the recipe to serve 2 adults and a kid.

Recipe Source: My sister

Ingredients	Quantity	Notes/Comments
Basmati rice	1 cup	Can use regular raw rice. In that case, 3/4th cup should be sufficient.
Fresh Pudina leaves	2 cups	-
Onion	2 medium sized	I just used one
Dried Red chilli	3	I used just 2 as we prefer it to be less spicy.
Grated Coconut	2 tbsp	I cut coconut into pieces as shown in ingredients picture.
Channa dal	1 tsp	-
Urad dal	2 tsp	-
Refined oil	2 1/2 tsp	-
Salt	To taste	Approximately 1 tsp.

Procedure
1. Wash basmati rice, add 2 cups of water and pressure cook for 2 whistles. Once rice is cooked, spread in a wide vessel and allow it to cool.
2. Clean pudina leaves with water and keep aside.
3. Peel onions and cut into small pieces and keep aside.
4. Heat 1 tsp of oil in a medium sized kadai/pan. Add mustard seeds, channal dal and urad dal and fry for few seconds, till dals turn light brown. Add coconut and red chilly and give it a stir. Transfer the ingredients to a mixer jar.
5. In the same pan, add 1/2 tsp oil and saute pudina leaves, till it wilts. (around 2 to 3 minutes). Transfer this too to the mixer jar containing dal and coconut mixture.
6. In the same pan add 1 tsp oil and saute onion until it becomes soft.(3 to 4 minutes) and transfer to a plate.
7. Coarsely grind dal mixture and pudina leaves by adding some water if needed. See to it that the final consistency of the ground mixture is semi solid. I used 1 tbsp of water to grind
8. Saute ground mixture and onion in a pan for 2 minutes. If the mixture is watery, heat till water evaporates and semi sold consistency is reached. Add salt and mix well. Seeing the quantity of ground mixture you might get tempted to add very less salt. Remember the salt we add is for the rice. So add as per the quantity of rice.
9. Once rice is completely cooled down, add pudina mixture and mix well but gently so that rice does not break.
10. Serve with papad/frymes or onion raita.

Still not clear???? Scroll down for step wise pictures...

Event Participation: Weekend Herb Blogging at Cooking With Siri, originally started by Haalo

Have a happy and relaxed weekend. :-)

Vegetable fried rice

Vegetable fried rice is easy to make and healthy to eat. If the vegetables are cut the previous night, this dish can be made within half an hour on a busy week day morning and packed for lunch. I have been making this for such a long time, I don't remember the source of this recipe.

Here is the recipe that serves 3 adults

Ingredients	Quantity	Notes/Comments
Long grain/Basmati Rice	1 cup	Can use ordinary rice too. Add little less water than usual while cooking.
Vegetables	around 2 cups	1 medium size carrot, 1/4th of a small cabbage, capsicum/bell pepper, 1 bunch spring onion. Can use red and yellow bell peppers too. Can omit cabbage or use beans.
Soy sauce	1/2 tbsp	-
Vinegar	1/2 tbsp	Can use apple cider vinegar too
Chilli sauce	1 tbsp	Use as per the spice level. If chilli sauce is not available green chilli can be slit and used. If using green chilli add it while cooking the vegetables
Salt	3/4 tbsp	Adjust as per taste
Olive/Refined Oil	1 1/2 tbsp	-

Procedure
1. Wash rice and soak in 1 cup water for 15 minutes.
2. Cut carrot, cabbage and capsicum length wise as thin as possible and spring onion to small pieces.
3. Drain water from rice, transfer it to the container that will be kept in pressure cooker. Add 1 1/2 cups water to rice.
4. Pressure cook rice for 2 whistles.
5. Transfer cooked rice to a wide vessel and allow it to cool completely.
6. Heat oil in a pan/kadai and add all the vegetable except spring onion. Allow it to cook in medium flame for 15 minutes. Stir every now and then. Can cover the pan with a lid.
7. Once vegetables are cooked(soft but still crunchy) add the spring onion and stir well.
8. Add soy sauce, vinegar, chilli sauce and salt and stir well in high flame for 3 minutes.
9. Keep flame in low and add the completely cooled rice(if not cooled, rice will stick to each other). Mix well and switch off the flame.
10. Vegetable fried rice is ready. Serve with tomato ketchup. It tastes great without any accompaniment too.

Still not clear???Scroll down for step wise pictures.

Stay tuned for the next post..Until then...take care.