Mint rice/ Mint Pulao /Pudina sadam/ Pudina pulao

Mint rice / Pudina pulao is simple and flavourful one pot meal. If you don't have time to spend in kitchen and worried  about what to prepare for your family?  then one pot meals are really life savers.  Within jiffy you can cook this wonderful and flavourful pulao. Even Bachelors can give a try.  

  A bunch of pudina is sitting in my pantry and i want to make a recipe out of it other than thogayal.  So i  googled and found the recipe of mint pulao. We liked it a lot. So now its your turn...

Here is the recipe...

Ingredients:

Basmathi rice - 1 cup

Water - 1 and 1/2 cups

Mint leaves/ Pudina - 1 cup tightly packed

Onion - 2

Peas frozen or fresh - fistfull (optional)

Greenchillies - 5 no

Lemon juice - from 1/2 of lemon or 1 tbsp

Ginger - 1 inch piece

Oil - 2 tbsp

Cardamom - 1 no

Cloves - 2 nos

Cashews - 4 no

Cinnamon -  1. no (1 inch piece)

Salt  to taste 

Method:

1. Soak Basmathi rice atleast for 30 mins and slice  one and half onions.Take mint leaves, ginger ,  remaining half  onion  and greenchillies in a mixer jar and grind it to a fine paste by adding little water.

2. In a pressure cooker, heat 2 tbsp of oil, add  whole garam masalas like Cardamom, Cinnamon, cloves. Then add cashews and fry it  till cashews  turns golden yellow colour.By this time the whole garam masalas will get fried well.  Now add sliced 1 and half  onions  fry it till it turns transparent.

3. Now add mint paste and fry it till the raw smell of mint goes. Then add fistfull of peas and give a quick stir. Add 1and 1/2 cup of water , lemon juice and salt. Allow it to boil. Then add soaked and drained basmathi rice and pressure cook for 1 - 2 whistles. Once pressure subsides, open the lid of pressure cooker and fluff it with a fork and serve hot.

Our mint pulao is ready!

 I served with onion raita...

Notes:

• Adding peas and cashews are purely optinal.
  
  
• Generally i don't give whisle while making pulaos / biriyani as there is a chance of getting  burnt bottom layer. So after water comes to boil , add rice and  allow it to boil for some more minutes  without closing the lid of pressure cooker until rice is cooked 80 - 90% .(  water content will be absorbed by rice . grains will be fluffy and there will be very little water left in a cooker)  Now close the lid and put whistle(pressure regulating valve)  and keep the flame to the maximum low  for 10 - 12 mins. And then switch off the flame . This is dum cooking.