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Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Methi Pulao

Hi everyone! Methi pulao is my Mom's most amazing rice dish. Many of our get-togethers back home have been flavoured by this rice and some spicy non-veg gravy based curry. And that is the most ideal recommended accompaniment for this dish.

Fig. 1. Methi Pulao

When I read about Priya's Think Spice - Fenugreek event (started by Sunita Bhuyan) I knew I could participate in it. I had a whole packet of frozen Methi sitting in my freezer that I needed to use. And no matter how little time one has, one has to eat! Question is always whether there is time to post the dish! :)

This pulao is very convenient to fill the lunch box. Lunchbox items comprise a large chunk of my cooking. The primary criterion for choosing dishes for dinner is "Can this go into the lunchbox tomorrow?" With this event around the corner, Methi Pulao just had to be made! Leftovers were packed into the lunchbox with a curry. 

Note: I make almost all of my rice dishes in a microwave. Same goes for this recipe. Don't mind, but I don't explicitly write "Heat for 2 minutes, check, stir and heat again" anywhere. The time varies from MW to MW and you could just make this on stove-top too. Either way the recipe is the same.

Ingredients
Cloves - 4
Cinnamon sticks - 1 small stick
Bay leaves - 1 leaf
Cardamoms - 3
Onion - 2 medium, chopped
Green chilies - 1 finely chopped
Ginger-Garlic paste - 2 teaspoons
Methi (fenugreek) leaves - about 2 cups packed
Rice - 1/2 cup, washed
Tomato - 1 medium, chopped
Red chili powder - 1 teaspoon or to taste
Salt - to taste
Water - 2 cups (in microwave)
Coriander leaves for garnish - a few sprigs, finely chopped

Procedure (General)
1) Season cloves, cinnamon sticks, bay leaves, cardamoms in a bit of oil.
2) Add chopped onion and fry well.
3) Add chopped green chillies, ginger-garlic paste and methi and fry.
4) Add washed rice and saute.
5) Add chopped tomatoes, red chili powder and salt
6) Add water and heat for 10 minutes or till the rice is fully cooked.

Update 1: Explicit microwave procedure: 
1) In microwave safe pyrex type bowl, take cloves, cinnamon sticks, bay leaves, cardamoms. Add a bit of oil on top so that it coats all the spices. Heat for 1-2 minutes till you can smell a fragrance from the spices when you open MW door. Stir in between if needed.
2) Add chopped onion, mix well, onions should be fairly coated with oil. Heat for 2-4 minutes, stopping, checking, stirring every minute or two. Should get slightly dry/oily (not watery at all). I called this stage in the MW when the water has evaporated "fried".
3) Add chopped green chillies, ginger-garlic paste and methi. Can add salt at this stage too. Veggies will absorb salt better this way. Stir well. Heat for 2-4 minutes, stopping, checking, stirring every minute or two. 
4) Add washed, drained rice. Stir well. May need to add one more teaspoon of oil if it seems too less. Rice grains should be coated with some oil after stirring. Heat for 1-2 minutes, stopping, checking, stirring every minute. The rice should get slightly dry/oily/"fried".
5) Add chopped tomatoes, red chili powder and salt. Heat some more so that tomatoes get mushy, stopping, checking, stirring every minute or two. 
6) Now, add water and heat for 10 minutes or till the rice is fully cooked. Can open and stir with a fork at say 8 minutes or so. Also test salt at this stage. Add more heating time if you see water still remains in the rice. When you wobble the dish, rice should not "flow". Add more water if it gets dry and still has not fluffed up.

For general MW judgment: In the microwave, I add water : rice ratio of 3 & 1/2 or 4 : 1. Outside on the stove I would add about 3:1 water:rice ratio. Usually for about 1/2 cup of dry rice grains it takes me anywhere from 8 to 12 minutes to cook. And even though it may seem like you are adding oil every so often, the total oil consumed for this whole thing for me is never more than 1 or 1 &1/2 tablespoons max. I just distribute it little by little between steps 1, 2 and 4 usually. More at the beginning will also be just fine.

Hope this helps.

Update 2: Since I have updated the post with explicit details about the microwave procedure I am sending this dish to the Microwave Easy Cooking event hosted by PJ at Seduce your Tastebuds, originally started by Srivalli. Almost all dishes can be made in the microwave almost the same way as on stove top. Heat, power and time vary depending on the size and oldness of your microwave. So I don't know how useful my detailed microwave instructions must be. In any case, if you are looking for more detailed recipes for MW cooking, do check out these event pages and Srivalli's blog. They have a lot of recipes which explicitly talk about cooking in the microwave.

Cheers and thanks for reading, everyone!

14 comments:

Soma said...

Of all the things i have done with methi leaves, never done a pulao. will have to give this a try. last week i harvested the mthi from my garden and made methi chicken. will soem more again before summer is over.

you really cook all rice dishes in the MW? Wow!! I never tried doing it, except when we were in a hotel for a month and a half.

Soma - www.ecurry.com

Satya said...

methi rice looks sooooooo yummy ,i love methi flavor n this rice is simply super ...

veena said...

thats so yummy, must try

SS blogs here said...

Hey Soma.. Wow home grown methi!! That's just too good! I am envious! Yes, I make almost everything in the microwave - rice, curries (everything except roti type stuff). Doesn't stick, makes washing easy. I just don't elaborate about that on the blog because there isn't any difference in the recipes really. Just do everything in the microwave instead of the stove! :)

Satya, thanks for the compliment! Yes, methi is just terrific with rice! :)

Veena, thanks for stopping by! Cheers!

Priya Suresh said...

Such a healthy and delicious methi pulao..love it..

Niloufer Riyaz said...

love that delicious Pulao!! so aromatic

SS blogs here said...

Thanks, Priya and Niloufer! :)

Sushma Mallya said...

i love methi pulav and long since i had this one, your version seems really good...

SS blogs here said...

Thanks, Sushma! If you have another version I would love to check it out! The more methi pulav on this planet the better. :)

Bong Mom said...

I think last year I did methi rice with brown rice couple of times with my home grown methi. This though looks immensely better

Bong Mom said...

And please,please write explicit MW recipe for this one. I really want to try this in MW, I have never done a rice dish in there.

SS blogs here said...

I have updated the recipe with some more detailed microwave explanation. Hope this helps!

Vaishali said...

I can never have enough of methi. And it does taste so good with rice. Glad to know it's one of your Mom's best dishes-- after that endorsement I have to try it :)

SS blogs here said...

Thanks, Vaishali! Yes, I most emphatically vouch for it! :)

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