Beetroot Pulav

Beets in any form were not acceptable by me in my childhood days. It was only that after I got married I was introduced to a lot of veggies by my hubby as he is a person who cannot live without vegetables. I gradually started liking many vegetables which were shunned by me as a child and now I too cannot cook everyday without any of the veggies. Luckily my children also like vegetables and beetroot is one of their favourites.
Recently I came upon this pulav in Supriya Raman's Ode2Food blog and gave it a try with some variations here and there and all at home were happy with it.

Ingredients :

1 large beetroot or 2 medium (washed, peeled and cut into cubes of any size )
2 cups Basmati rice ( washed and soaked for 30 minutes )
1 cup chopped onion
2 - 3 cloves garlic
3 - 4 green chillies
1/4 cup chopped mint leaves or coriander leaves
1 tsp. Kitchen king masala
1/2 tsp. pepper powder
1 tsp. jeera
2 normal green cardamom pods / 1 black cardamom
4 cloves
1 small cinnamon
2 bay leaves
1 tbsp. ghee or butter or oil ( I mixed 1/2 ghee and 1/2 oil )
Salt to taste
4 cups water


Method :

1. Heat oil/ghee in a pressure pan, add the bay leaves, cloves, cinnamon, cardamom and jeera. Once they get fried, add the chopped garlic, mint/coriander leaves, onions, green chillies and saute for a few minutes till the onions turn transluscent.

2. Add the chopped betroot and saute for a while till the betroot is half cooked. Add the drained rice, pepper powder, kitchen king masala, salt and mix well.

3. Pour the measured amount of water and give a stir and cook covered without the weight for 10 - 15 minutes on medium low till the water evaporates and the rice is cooked.

4. Serve hot with pappad and raita.

Krishnaarpanam

Lasooni Palak Phulka

Green chapathi as it is lovingly named by my kids, this chapathi is very nutritious also. I added garlic to this recipe, but one can omit and ginger can be used instead of garlic.

Ingredients :

1 cup spinach leaves ( washed )
2 cloves garlic
3 - 4 green chillies
2 cups whole wheat flour
Salt to taste
water to knead and grind

Method :

1. Grind the spinach, garlic, green chillies with little water into a smooth paste.
2. Add this paste to the wheat flour and some salt and knead into a soft chapathi dough. If you find the dough to be watery, then add little more wheat flour and knead / if the dough is very hard, then add some water. Keep in the fridge for 15 minutes or so for the flavours of the spinach and the garlic to blend with the flour.
3. Remove from fridge and make small balls out of the dough and roll out into chapathis.



4. On a medium hot tava, put one rolled out chapathi and cook on one side till half done.




5. Flip over and cook till the other side has brown spots on it.

6. Remove the chapati from the tava and put the undercooked side over direct flame and puff up the phulka. ( In case of coil stove or glass stove top , use a splatter screen to put the phulka over direct flame or heat ) ( See the fig. )




7. Smear with ghee and serve hot with any side dish or with curd and pickle.

Splatter screens can be found in Wal-Mart, Target, K-mart, Bed Bath & Beyond and any store in the US which has household things.




Krishnaarpanam