Monday, August 14, 2017

Carrot Rice

Hi there! I know, I know. I apologise for being away from posting for such a long time. Well, I got little too busy with personal life and had taken the break for granted. I promise to try to be regular here after and post recipes frequently. The recipe I am going to share today is Carrot Rice. The short story behind this recipe is, on one working day, like usual I pre-decided the lunch menu to be tamarind rice (puliyodharai). 

Little did I check my pantry before deciding the lunch menu whether I have tamarind in stock?! At 6:30 in the morning, I was searching for the tamarind in my pantry & rammed the entire kitchen shelves but couldn't find even a small bit of tamarind. Time was running in Hussain Bolt speed and I was left only with 15 more minutes to make the lunch. After a quick thought I realised that I had lots of carrots in my fridge and I decided to make puliyodharai with a twist. Clock was ticking and exactly after 15 minutes the aroma of rice surrounded the whole house and the colour of it was beautiful bright orange with golden brown & green colour garnishings. From that day onwards carrot rice became my sons favourite and he started asking for carrot rice at the restaurants, friends' house, etc.,.

Let me get into the recipe without further delays.

Ingredients 

1. Carrots - 2 big (peeled, & grated)

2. Rice - 1 cup (cooked & cooled)

3. Ghee - 1/2 tbsp

4. Mustard seeds - 1/4 tsp

5. Cumin seeds - 1/4 tsp

6. Peanuts - 1/2 tsp

7. Channa dal - 1/4 tsp

8. Split Urid Dal - 1/4 tsp

9. Cashewnuts - 1/2 tsp

10. Onion - 1 (finely chopped, optional)

11. Red chilli powder - 1/4 tsp

12. Turmeric powder - 1/8 tsp

13. Coriander powder - 1/2 tsp

14. Cumin powder - 1/4 tsp

15. Salt - to taste

16. Garam Masala - 1/4 tsp

17. Curry leaves - few

18. Coriander leaves (fresh or dried) - few

Method

1. Heat a heavy bottomed pan, pour ghee while melting add mustard seeds.

2. Let the mustard seeds crackle and add the cumin seeds, fry for 20 seconds.

3. Now add the following ingredients with 30 seconds gap in between - peanuts, channa dal, split urid dal, cashewnuts and sauté everything till all turns light golden brown colour.

4. It's now the turn for onions. Add them and sauté till it turns translucent. 

5. Add the spices - turmeric, red chilli, coriander and cumin powders, mix well until well coated into onions. Let this cook for 1 minute till the raw smell of spice powders goes off.

6. Now add grated carrots, give a good stir; you now have couple of options here where you can cook carrots for long till it turns soft or short period to retain the slight crunchiness. I prefer mine to be soft so then my kids would eat.

7. When step 6 is over, reduce the flame/heat of the stove to very low; sprinkle salt and garam masala; mix well and taste to check spice flavours, adjust if needed more; add cooked & cooled rice; throw in the curry leaves & coriander leaves.

8. Start folding in everything. You'd have to spend about 5 mins to mix the carrot masala and rice very well so that the rice absorbs the spices and flavours. 

9. Taste to check for salt and adjust if required. Serve warm with any yogurt rhaita or potato fry or channa masala.

Notes:

Folding in the rice into carrot masala is the trick to prevent the rice strands from breaking. 

The above mentioned spice measurements will yield a mild flavoured carrot rice. Increase the measurements (doubling up) if you like more spice flavours in your rice. 

Variations to this recipe that I tried & tested are:

1. Carrot Puliyodharai

2. Carrot-Peas rice

3. Carrot-Zucchini rice

4. Carrot-Raw mango rice 

I will share the recipes for the above very soon. It's now time for me to say goodbye but for you, it's the time to try this recipe and kindly share with me your feedback.

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