Winter Recipes: Methi Pulav Recipe for Quick Dinner During Busy Days
10
We are into a brand new year 2013 and till now I have not made any appearance on the blog , start of new year is always busy time and this year more so. Starting a new life in new home, so all my time these days spent either in designing the interiors of new home or shopping for the furniture, matching furnishings, walls , window treatments and doing other 100 things that come with moving home.
If that was not enough, to my horror I discovered that my driving licence also expired; so an appointment with RTO and issuing another one was also a priority to deal with. That dealt, I came back home to know that while coming back home from college Technovert teen fell prey to pickpockets in the metro who stole his favourite mobile phone. So you see first week already brought too much of excitement in my life.
During this period, my frozen meals came as a blessing in disguise and soups, bhuna masala, frozen curries and one pot meals came really handy and were my saviours when long shopping trips and discussions to design according to teens and hubs requirments left me with almost no energy to cook.
Few days back I happen to do photography shoot for a polish cook book {for a rice brand there}, author wanted to include recipe of methi pulav so I cooked Methi pulav and photographed it for her cookbook.
Fresh Methi {green fenugreek leaves} are one of my favourite greens during winters. Methi leaves contain iron and also known to provide anti-inflammatory benefits. Mom always used to cook some methi dish for us after a bout of sickness as it is effective in reducing the feeling of bitter taste in mouth that comes after fever is gone.
Recent studies have shown that Fenugreek helps lower blood glucose and cholesterol levels, and may be effective in dietary management of people with diabetes.
Coming back to recipe, pulav or pilaf as it is known in some of the places is one pot meal in which rice is cooked with lots of vegetables or may be some beans and a selection of herbs and spices. A nutritious and easy to cook dish that tastes delicious too, whenever I am cooking methi pulav one of my secret ingredient is amritsari vadi (dried spicy lentil dumplings) which of course you can omit if you are not particularly fan of spicy food. My family likes to eat something spicy once in a while so I added vadi to make methi pulav spicier.
Many people assume that eating rice is unhealthy , but in my opinion n general no food is unhealthy, its the quantities that we consume or the cooking method we adopt makes it healthy, unhealthy or ideal food specific to you. If you eat unhealthy quantities any food can become unhealthy for you. So at our home most of the time what we practice is to eat smaller portions { small plate } of rice and balance it with good quantity of vegetables and proteins in form of yogurt/beans/paneer etc.
Health Tip :
Whenever you are cooking with greens , add lemon juice or some indian gooseberry at end as it contains vitamni C that is essential for your body to absorb iron from Iron rich food like leafy greens etc.
Ingredients
- 1.5 cups Long grained Basmati Rice
- 2 Tbsp Ghee { Homemade Ghee }
- 1 tsp Cumin seeds
- ½ tsp whole black peppercorns
- 1-2 bay leaves
- 4-5 cloves
- 1/2 cup sliced onion
- 3 cup washed and chopped fresh fenugreek leaves
- 100g cubes of paneer { Recipe to make at home }
- 1 cup sliced carrot
- Salt to taste
- 1 tsp Red chilli Powder
- 3-4 amritsari vadi ( optional if you want to make it spicy)
- 1 tsp lemon juice.
- 5-6 roasted cashew to garnish (optional)
- Parsley leaves to garnish
Instructions
- Wash and soak basmati rice for 15 minutes, after 15 minutes discard water and keep rice aside.
- In a thick bottomed pan heat ghee and tip in cumin seeds, black peppercorns, cloves, bay leaves. Let them cook for a minute, add sliced onion, amritsari vadi, small paneer cubes and sliced carrot to it.
- Follow it up with addition of methi leaves , let them cook for 2-3 minutes till they appear wilted and now add basmati rice.
- With a slotted spoon gently stir the whole mixture, take care not to break rice grains and cook for 2-3 minutes.Add 3.5 cups of water. Cover it with the lid and after water starts boling reduce
- the heat to min and cook till rice grain is cooked and separated from each
- other.
- Keep it covered for 3-4 more minutes add lime juice and serve hot with accompaniment of
- your choice.
Suggested accompaniment : Plain curd/yogurts, or Boondi Raita, Indian papad
and pickle.
and pickle.
oh!!! that is mind blowing!!! love it!! bookmarking it!!!
Sowmya
Ongoing Event – Breakfast
I am a rice lover. Methi pulav or any pulav for that matter has always been a favorite at home. Will try your variation next time.
Such a lovely recipe… and i m so in awe of the photos! great work Rekha and a keeper recipe which spells comfort all over
will def pick up some fresh methi leaves when I am at indian grocery store coz loved the idea of this pilaf
Such a lovely and fabulous looking pulav..
Rekha, that Methi Pulao looks so damn good that I can the taste the flavour of each grain just through the pics! Phenomenally good!
Yum . Bookmarking.
Yum yum !
Gotta try this. I have some fresh methi on hand.
made this yesterday. yummy!
Thanks PK !