A favourite staple in the Achal Niwas household and a dish with unlimited options when it comes to variations… here’s the recipe for Indian Veggie Rice by Manju! Once again, everything is ‘as you like‘ so its a bit of a vegetable free-for-all! Don’t let the word vegetable convince you somehow this is healthy however, I’m pretty sure it’s not… but on the plus side its yummy and you can swap soyabean oil for 1 calorie spray and the carb heavy mixture of potatoes with rice for chicken/seafood or quorn in rice to make it health-conscious after all. That is, only if you’re really that worried (but you’re not worried really are you?)… win win!

Veggie Rice : Manju Style

The real deal… Vege-licious

Ingredients:

• 3 tomatoes
• 1 green chilli
• 3 small potatoes
• 3 small onions
• peas (as many or little as you like)
• Dried fruits (of your choice)
• 1 lemon
• 2 cups of rice
• Turmeric
• Salt
• Chilli Powder

Ingredients

Cooking Time: 10 to 15 mins with a pressure cooker…

How to:

1) Peel the peas from the pods and chop up all of your vegetables.

2) Put 2 tablespoons of oil into the pan. Let the oil begin to boil. Tip: If you’re unsure as to whether the oil is ready or not, pop a small slice of onion in, if it makes a loud sizzling sound its ready to cook with!

3) Fry your onion and chilli together first until the onion begins to brown slightly.

4) Add the rice (dry), along with the chopped potatoes and peas.

5) Stir the mixture so that the oil covers all the veg (add more if necessary), sprinkling a teaspoon of tumeric and salt over the ingredients.

6) If you like it hot, be sure to add one large teaspoon of red chilli powder into the recipe also. Stir.

7) Take the pan off the boil.

8) Add your chopped tomatoes, along with the dried fruits of your choice and stir once again.

9) Taking double the amount of water as rice (so four cups to your two cups), pour this into the mixture and stir vigorously.

10) Put your rice back onto the boil, making sure nothing burns!

11) Season with salt and pepper ‘as you like’. If using a pressure cooker, put the lid on and let it cook for 10 minutes. Otherwise, put on the pan lid and let it cook on a medium setting, checking continuously and stirring.

12) Once the recipe has taken on quite a thick, sticky texture (like Paella), its ready! Squeeze the lemon over the top of the rice and prepare to serve.

Adding the lemon..

Next up: Some amazing foods Manju keeps continuously surprising me with, a curry with chapati inside that tastes just like Indian pasta, some pancake like thingy that has chilli and paneer in it made from besan and big warm doughy balls with green chilli and garlic. And no, they’re not pakora, and yes this is not the technical terminology.

Happy Eating!

Liv