Vegetable Pulav (Rice cooked with vegetables)

Vegetable Pulav

Vegetable pulav is a complete food by itself. Rice when cooked with lots of vegetables makes it very attractive and colorful in appearance. It is a real fun in our family when pulav is being made as my husband loves making pulav for the family, and the minutest details right from the amount of vegetable to cutting them to appropriate size and so on, he looks himself where as I have a fields day and get to enjoy the vegetable pulav without doing any work.!!

Preparation Time: 20min.

Cooking Time: 30min.

Servings: Four large servings

Ingredients required for making Vegetable Pulav:

• 200gm. Rice
• 50gm. French Beans
• 50gm. Carrot
• 2 Medium size Potatoes. (optional)
• 50 – 75gm. Nutrela (soya nuggets, optional)
• 2 medium size Tomatoes
• 50-75gm. Onions
• 1/2 Tea spoon Turmeric Powder
• 3-4 Cloves.
• 1 black cardamom
• 2 Bay leaves
• 2-3cm. cinnamon stick
• 5gm. Garam Masala(1 tea spoon approx..)
• 50gm. Ginger- Garlic paste (2-3 tea spoon approx..)
• Salt to taste
• 25ml. Ghee / cooking oil
• Water

Directions to prepare Vegetable Pulav:

• Clean and wash rice
• Soak the washed rice in 250ml. water
• Soak Nutrela for 30min. in water

.

Soaked Nutrela

• Wash and dry all vegetables.
• Cut beans, carrots, into 3-4cm. long thin pieces.

Carrot and French beans cut for Pulav

• Cut onions to thin long pieces.

Onions cut length wise for Pulav

• Cut Tomatoes to pieces.

Tomatoes for pulav

• Take 10ml. Ghee/oil in a pressure cooker and heat it on high flame.
• When the ghee/oil is smoking hot reduce the flame.
• Squeeze water from soaked Nutrela and shallow fry them in oil/ghee.

Carrot, French beans and soaked squeezed nutrela

• Remove Nutrela when they become golden brown and keep aside.
• Add remaining 15ml. of ghee/oil and heat.
• Add bay leaves, cloves, black cardamom and cinnamon stick.
• Cloves will start spluttering and wonderful smell of spices will start coming.
• Add Onion and cook on low flame till they become transparent
• Add Ginger-garlic paste and cook for 2 min. with regular stirring.
• Add Potatoes and cook for 2-3 min. with regular stirring..
• Add beans, carrots and cook for 2-3min. with regular stirring.
• Add tomatoes and cook they become soft.
• Add shallow fried Nutrela and mix

.

All vegetables and soaked fried nutrela being cooked

• Drain the soaked rice and keep the water aside.
• Add rice to the cooker and mix with gentle stirring so as the rice, vegetable, spices mixture becomes homogeneous.

Soaked rice added to the vegetable mixture

• Add turmeric powder, salt, garam masala , red chili powder and mix.

Salt, Turmeric powder, Garam masala and Red chili powder added to rice and vegetables

Spices mixed to rice and vegetable mixture

• Add the water kept aside after draining the rice.

Water added to rice, vegetable and spices mixture

• Mix gently.
• Close the lid of cooker and put the flame on high.
• When the pressure is built in the cooker reduce the flame to low and cook for 5 min.
• Switch off the gas and allow the pressure in the cooker to subside.
• Open the cooker and get the first look and wonderful smell of vegetable pulav.

Vegetable Pulav

Take it out on a serving dish and serve with curd/raita, pickle

http://jyotsna-pant.blogspot.com/2012/06/mango-pickle-north-indian-style.html

http://jyotsna-pant.blogspot.com/2012/06/tangy-mango-pickle-maharashra-style.html

 http://jyotsna-pant.blogspot.com/2012/06/spicy-mixed-vegetable-pickle-less-oily.html
 / chutney  http://jyotsna-pant.blogspot.com/2011/10/green-coriander-and-mint-chutney.html, salad and roasted papad.
I love eating this pulav with Ghee and pickle.

Vegetable Pulav with Curd, Coriander chutney, Salad and Papad

Tips:-

• Those who do not take onions, garlic can omit it and instead replace onions, garlic with cumin seeds.
• The rice used in the above recipe is Dulhan basmati rice, the requirement of water may vary little with different variety of rice.
• While washing basmati rice wash them in a sieve with running water.
• Do not rub rice with hands as the flavor goes off with vigorous washing.
• If you like spicy food then you can add red chili powder to you taste.
• Do not release he pressure from cooker after switching off the gas let it subside by itself, the flavor of spices will get seeped in rice nicely.

Suggested Variations:

• Cauliflower, Broccoli,Cottage cheese can be also be put in pulav.
• Fresh Peas added to the pulav gives it a very good flavor and color.
• Badi can be fried and added instead of nutrela.

Fried Badi

• Pulav tastes best with basmati rice, but you can choose rice as per your choice.
• For those who for any reason like less oil, can reduce the amount of ghee/oil as per the requirement.