Curry Leaves and Jeera Pulav

We had thunder showers and heavy rains for a couple of days giving a chilling effect to the summer here. Oh it was very soothing... Now I have a small garden at my home and after this showers most of the plants started growing like crazy... Curry leaves in particular. Now I have a big bunch of curry leaves to be exhausted...



The other day while browsing through arusuvai-kurippu, I found a recipe for pulav using curry leaves. There was no second thinking... I immediately tried it and the dish tasted wonderful... This is a very healthy recipe... I just made 1 or 2 changes to the original recipe like used ghee instead of oil and so on..

Ingredients:
Rice - 1 cup
Onions - 1
Curry leaves - 1/2 cup
urad dal - 1 tbsp
pepper - 1/2 tbsp
Jeera/Cumin - 1 tsp
Fennel seeds - 1 tsp
Garlic - 2 pods
Ghee - 2 tsp
salt - to taste



Method:

• Pressure cook rice with salt and enough water.
• Finely chop the onions and garlic.
• In a non stick pan, dry roast the urad dal until the urad dal turns slight pink in colour.
• Add pepper and curry leaves. Switch off the stove.
• Saute for about 5 minutes until the curry leaves shrink and turn slightly crisp.
• Cool and powder the roasted ingredients.
• Heat Ghee in a pan. Add cumin and fennel seeds. Let it sizzle.
• Add chopped onions and garlic. Fry until onions turn translucent.
• Add the curry leaves powder. Add little salt. Mix well. 
• Switch off stove. Add the cooked rice and mix well.

Curry leaves and Jeera Pulav is ready!!! I served this with raita, pickle and papad.

Flavoured Rice

One of my colleagues used to stay in a PG during her bachelor days. She was a workaholic and never used to bother about food. But her PG owner was a caring lady. The PG owner always used to insist one must not goto bed in an empty stomach. My colleague, when she stays late in office used to call up and inform her PG owner that she would not be available for dinner and that she would manage a bite in office. But she would be so engrossed in work that she will forget her dinner. When she went home late in the night and the PG lady finds out that she has not had any dinner, she would be furious. The lady would immediately prepare this flavoured rice in a matter of 15 minutes and serve with some pickle it seems. My colleague used to relish the rice. And she shared with me the recipe of this rice.

The name flavoured rice was given by my colleague and I would like to maintain it.

Believe me its too quick to make and goes with any spicy side dish. This would be a great lunchbox idea.

Ingredients:
Rice - 200 grams (1 cup)
fennel seeds - 2 grams
cloves - 2 nos
cinnamon - 1/2 inch stick
cardamom - 1
ghee - 1 tbsp
mint leaves - few
coriander leaves - few
garlic - 4 pods
ginger - a small piece
salt - to taste

Method:

• Wash the rice and keep aside.
• Grind the mint leaves, coriander leaves, ginger and garlic coarsely.
• In a pressure cooker, pour ghee.
• Add the cloves, cinnamon, cardamom and fennel seeds. Fry for about a minute.
• Add the ground paste and fry until the raw smell disappears.
• Add the rice and fry for about 2 minutes.
• Add 2.5 cups of water and the required amount of salt. Mix well.
• Pressure cook for about 2 whistles.

Flavoured rice is ready!!! I served this with egg curry, pickle and papads. We enjoyed this on a rainy night.

Linking this to nivedhan's WTML who is guest hosting for gayathris

Egg Curry

I have already posted a recipe of Muttai Curry. This is a slightly different version. I got to know that in hotels, they generally don't add tomatoes to the egg curry. Instead little coconut or coconut milk is added. So tried this version and it tuned out to be yummy. I served this with flavoured rice... Recipe will be shared soon..

Ingredients:

Onions - 200 grams
Eggs - 3
cocnut - 25 grams
Garlic - 10 grams
Ginger - 5 grams
Chilly powder - 10 grams
Coriander powder - 10 grams
Garam Masala powder - 5 grams
Coriander leaves - little
Pudina leaves - little
Oil - 20 grams
Salt - to taste
Turmeric powder - 1/4 teaspoon

Spices:
Fennel seeds - 2 grams
cloves - 4 nos

Method:

• Full boil the eggs. Remove the shell and keep it aside.
• Finely chop the onions, ginger and garlic.
• Grind the coconut with little warm water and extract the coconut milk
• In a kadai, pour oil. Add the ingredients listed under spices. Fry for about a minute.
• Add the finely chopped onions. Fry until the onions turn brown colour.
• Add the ginger and garlic. Saute until the raw smell disappaears.
• Add salt, turmeric powder, chilly powder and coriander powder.
• Once the raw smell of the powders disappear pour the coconut milk.
• Mix well and heat until the gravy thickens.Once the gravy starts boiling, switch off the stove
• Add the boiled eggs. You can either add them as a whole or cut into 2 pieces and add.
• Garnish with coriander leaves and mint leaves.

Egg curry is ready!! Serve this with appam, idiappam, chapathi or some mildly flavoured rice.