Vegetable Pulav

Another of my quick fix, lazy day favourite. Life is easier, since I get chopped mixed vegetables from the store.  So here goes the recipe...

Ingredients

Rice - 1.5 cup
Chopped vegetable - 1.5 cup
Chopped Onion - 1 medium size
Green chillies (slit) - 4
Cloves - 2
Bay leaf - 1
Salt
Water - 3 cups

Vegetables
Carrots, beans,peas, potatoes - my these are my favourite, you can change as per you liking.

Process

1. Wash the rice and soak in water for 15 mins and drain the water
2. Add  s2- 3 tsp of oil in a pan and heat. Add green chillies, cloves, bay leaf and fry.
3. Then add the chopped onion and mixed vegetables , fry for 5 mins.
4. Then add the rice and salt to taste. Fry for another 2-3 mins.
5. Since I use an electric cooker, I move the contents into its container and pour the 3 cups of water and wait till its done. If using a normal cooker I will doing the frying in the cooker itself and add the water and close the lid. Switch the stove after 3 whistles.
6. It goes well with raita or veg. or soya nugget kurma.

Gutti Vankaya

This is a very famous and special dish in Andhra Pradesh and if properly made, tastes delicious :)
I like Brinjal (baby eggplant) a lot and hence like all brinjal dishes :) But gutti vankai is the one of the best brinjal dishes one can prepare :)

Coming to the preparation.....

Ingredients:
1) Small Brinjal (5 - 7)
2) Groundnuts (Peanuts) - 1 small cup
3) Sesame seeds - 1/4 cup
4) Chilly powder 1 table spoon
5) Sambar powder - 2 table spoons
6) Salt - as per your taste.

Procedure:
1) Roast groundnuts in a pan without oil.
2) Once the above step is done, roast sesame seeds.
3) Let both groundnuts and sesame seeds cool down a bit and then put these two into mixer jar and add 2 spoons of sambar powder and 1 spoon of chilly powder, 1-2 spoons of salt(as per your taste) and grind it well.
4) Cut the brinjals into in a way that you can stuff the above powder into it (as shown below).

5) Take a pan or cooker, add 3 spoons of oil and place stuffed brinjal into it pour one small cup of water.
6) Make sure that you have masala powder left after stuffing brinjal so that you can add on top the brinjal and water.
7) Cook in the cooker till 1 whistle and switch it off.
8) Wait for 10 mins and Gutti vankai is ready.



This goes well with Rice and also with chapathis.

Note that this is not an authentic recipe for gutti vankai but it tastes really good.

Semya Payasam

My mom used to prepare this on my birthdays and I like this dish especially if my mom prepares.
This is a kind of very basic payasam/kheer, very easy to prepare.

Ingredients:
1) Milk - 1 gallon
2) Semya (vermicelli) - 200 gms
3) Cashews, raisins (dry grapes) and elaichi (green cardamom) powder.

4) Sugar

Procedure:
1) Transfer 1 gallon of milk into a vessel and heat it.
2) Break semya into small pieces and put aside. I have used roasted vermicelli (if you don't have roasted vermicelli, please roast it before adding it into milk)

3) Roast Cashews, raisins and elaichi powder in ghee (roast in small flame)

4) After 15 mins, add 1 cup of sugar (add later as required) and keep heating.
5) Once the milk reaches boiling point add semya pieces into it.
6) After 10-15 mins add roasted cashew, raisins into the mix and keep stirring.


7) Heat the contents till semya is well cooked.



And here it is yummy semya payasam.
Tip: If you feel that semya payasam is thick, add more milk and sugar accordingly as this dish should be thin.

Bisibelebath

Bisibelebath is a Karnataka dish and it means Bisi - Hot, bele - dal and bath - mixed with Rice. Most of my friends call it as Sambar rice :) but it is not true even though few ingredients are same. In Sambar rice, Sambar and Rice are cooked separately and then mixed. Bisibelebath is all about cooking Toor dal, vegetables, rice and spices together. So lets start cooking.....

Ingredients:

Toor dal - 1 cup
Rice - 1 cup
Potato - 2-3
Carrot - 2-3
Beans
Bisibelebath masala - 2 -3 spoons
Groundnuts or peanuts - half cup
Cashews - as per taste
Tamarind paste
Ghee
Basic tampering (tadka)


Procedure:

1) Take 1 cup of toor dal in a big vessel and add 4 cups of water and start cooking on stove.
2) Soak 1 cup of rice in 1:2 ratio in a bowl.
3) If you don't have tamarind paste, please soak tamarind in a bowl now.
4) Cut 2-3 medium sized potatoes into cubes (not too small and not too big), also cut carrots and beans (you can add different variety of vegetables but i prefer only these three)
5) After 20 mins of cooking dal (dal should be half cooked), add vegetables and peanuts and continue cooking.
6) Mix 2-3 spoons of bisibelebath powder in tamarind juice, also add chilly powder if you want it little spicy.
7) After another 10 -15 mins (dal should be 75 % cooked) add the soaked rice along with water.
8) After another 5 mins, add the mix prepared in 6th step and add salt as per taste.
9) Prepare basic tadka (with oil, mustard seeds, hing, urad dal, curry leaves, cashews, red chillies etc).
10) Once rice and dal are well cooked, add the tadka to it along with lots of Ghee ( you can skip adding ghee if you don't want calories but if you are looking for excellent taste please add ghee and work out a little more in gym :))

There it is hot, spicy bisibelebath.

Serving tip: Server Bisibelebath with Boondi, chips, mixture or Papad (my favourite is Papad)