Mattar Pulao

Any Rice dish in my house is always welcomed and relished by my daughter and husband. Zia, my 21 month old daughter loves rice and rice with mattar (peas) in them is a double treat for her. The minute she sees green peas in her food, she starts digging in. Its a little game for her :) she thinks the peas are little balls that mommy puts in for her to play with and then eat. This works great for me!!! She has her greens with no fuss and we are all happy.
Zia was delighted to see her dinner today. RICE and PEAS!!!

digging in to find her little green balls

This is a simple dish that takes very little time, is filling and can be served plain or with any curry.

To make mattar pulao you will need

Preparation time - 10 minutes

Cooking time - 25 minutes
Serves 4


Ingredients
500 g rice - soaked for half an hour and drained of all its water

1 onion - sliced
3 tbsps oil
1 tsp black cumin seeds
2-3 bay leaves
2 black cardamoms
3 cloves
1 cinnamon stick
1 tsp garlic paste
1 cup fresh or frozen green peas
salt to taste
2 glasses of water to cook the rice


Procedure

• Heat the oil in a flat based pan. Add the onions to this and sauté until translucent
• Then add the cumin seeds, bay leaves, cardamoms, cloves, cinnamon, garlic paste, peas and salt to taste. Continue to sauté for another 5-7 minutes

• Add the water to this, cover and bring to a boil. Once the water comes to a boil add the pre soaked rice to this and stir, replace lid and let it cook. When the rice comes to a boil, remove lid and simmer. After 5 minutes, stir to check the amount of water.

you can see the amount of water remaining on the left. let it cook some more at this stage

after another3-5 minutes the amount of water remaining will reduce and you will see tiny bubbles forming in the water.let it reach this stage

• Once it reaches the stage of tiny bubbles cover the pan with tin foil and replace lid. Let it cook on very low flame for 20 minutes. The tin foil ensures none of the steam escapes and that the rice is well cooked in the little water remaining.

this is how the pulao will look
after 20 minutes

Serve hot with any curry of your choice or plain. Enjoy

Note

1. Before adding the rice to the water, taste it to check if the amount of salt is right. The amount of salt added is diluted due to the addition of water.
2. There are people who use newspaper to cover the pan instead of tin foil.PLEASE DO NOT DO THIS as the lead in the print can poison your food.

Shabnam