My 1st Pulao

(moving from friendstar)

Well, this is another blog-able incident which had a very positive long term impact on my day-to-day life.

One fine Saturday I decided to resume cooking after quite a long break. So to start with something simple yet substantial I decided to make khich(u)ri. I was very confident that I had all the ingredients & without double checking started the process. Within few minutes it dawned on me that I don't have "dal". I spent some amount searching all obvious places without any luck. So I banked on my creativity & decided to substitute the pulses with equal amount of rice. Accordingly the cooking time should reduce to 1 whistle (I was using a pressure cooker) - since that's how much it takes for the rice to cook & the veggies (all frozen) take very little time.

Amlan came for dinner as planned. I gave him a warning that whatever he will eat is experimental! Well, it turned out OK. & so I this is how I got a short cut to cooking my lunch & dinner for the 5 workdays in the shortest possible way & have been surviving on slight variations of that ever since. If you don't get bored, its a pretty healthy & substantial meal.

Recipe:
Medium heat. Heat oil (as little as 2 teaspoonful), add cumin seeds, bay leaves, cinnamon sticks, cloves & cardamom (in short garam masala). Fry a little. Add rice - 2 cup for a 3 litter pressure cooker. Add any combination of the following - mushrooms (sliced), chick peas, different types of kidney beans, pinto beans, black beans, lima beans, bell peppers (different colors look good), chopped broccoli (this is my secret - well, no more, I guess - ingredient for most dishes), green beans, peas. You can add other veggies like diced potato or sliced carrot etc. Fry a little. Add cumin & cardamom powder + salt. Stir the whole thing. High heat. Add 4 cups of water & close the lid of the cooker. As soon as the whistle blows, turn off the heat. Now wait for the cooker to cool off so that you can open the lid. Its best to let stay on the stove itself for a while. Ta da!!

Now what I do is store this pulao in small margarine (or similar) tubs. Typically I fill the tubs as much as possible & one tub suffices for one meal (lunch or dinner). Most of the times I separately fry ground turkey with turmeric, cumin & cardamom powder + salt & spread a layer of this on each tub before closing. This the contents of each tub is almost air tight & stays fresh for at least a week in the refrigerator.

Coming back to the story: On Sunday I found where I had kept the "dal"!