Enthaligai: PALAK PULAO

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.