One of the post from my draft. Away
from family, missing everything. When I gaze outside through the window of my
room, I could see a beautiful World. The
high rise buildings are adding a beauty to the city. The facade of these units were lit with fancy
lamps and the modern architectural design enrich the vibrancy of the city. The whole city is moving to a delightful weekend
mode and I could see a sense of relaxation in everybody's face. Yet, I am in no mood of enjoyment. I miss being at home, miss my little dumpling,
miss my favorite comfortable spot in my couch, miss the smell of my home, miss the
weekend cleaning stuffs, miss watering my tender ladies finger /spinach plants(Oh
yeah! this is my latest interest, phew!!!) and above all I miss my cooking
stuffs...
Without further list of missing things, I quickly go to the recipe. I have never tasted much of Palak recipes in my childhood
and I started learning to include this greens only after my marriage. At first, I learnt only to make Palak Paneer and
slowly picked up other variation of dishes that I could do with this healthy
spinach. Now at least once in a week, I
include this variety of spinach in my kitchen.
I have started growing my own spinach in my balcony terrace and it's
growing much faster. Here's the latest
pic I got from home this morning.
Touching upon the recipe, this spinach rice is very easy to
prepare, one pot, vegetarian meal and
quite perfect for lunch box. To make it
colorful, I have added carrots which
brought very mild sweetish essence to the dish.
Also the addition of sweet corn kernels gave an attractive eye-catching look
to the recipe along with sweetish delight on every bite. Since potato is never a miss option at home, I
added it as well which enhanced the taste of this meal.
INGREDIENTS:
Palak Leaves (tightly packed) - 2 cups
Carrot -2
Potato - 1
Sweet corn kernels - 1 cup
Onion - sliced thin - 1
Pudhina/Mint leaves - handful
Red chilly powder - 1 tsp
Oil - 3 tsp
Ghee - 2 tsp
Basmati Rice - 2 cups
Salt - As desired.
To grind:
Garlic pods - 3-4
Ginger - 1" piece
Green chilly - 2
Sauté Palak leaves
To temper:
Bay leaf - 1
Cinnamon - a small stick
Cloves - 4-5
Preparation:
Discard Palak leaves
from the stem separately and wash the leaves in running cold water. Sauté in a pan for a minute until the leaves
get shrunken. Don't sauté for a longer
time as the beautiful greenish color might change. Let it cool for some time.
Meanwhile soak basmati rice in warm water for 15 minutes and
drain the water completely.
Keep the pressure cooker on medium flame and throw in the
tempering items one by one. When the
tempering items sizzles, add mint leaves followed by sliced onions. When the onions turns brown, add tomato , cut
vegetables, and salt. After a minute or
two, add the ground green masala from sauté spinach leaves and mix well. Lastly, add the chilly powder and sweet corn
kernels. Finally, pour in 3 cups of
water (1:1.5 ratio) and add the drained rice and two teaspoons of ghee. Pressure cook for one whistle. Allow until the pressure releases, mix well, and now a healthy meal is ready to be served.
Wanna to grab a teaspoon for taste, here it is :-)
