Kashmiri Pulao with a South Indian touch

I love Pineapple. I love it so much that you will find it in my fridge anytime. I grab a pineapple every time I go to Costco. They go for 3$ each which is super cheap.

This is Mrs. Chitra Viswanathan's(She posts recipes in http://www.indusladies.com. Her recipes are always a hit and I am a big fan of her)recipe. I feel it has a South Indian touch because the spice powder used here is similar to vangi bath powder. I liked it because the the taste was very mild and not overpowering. Here is how I made Kashmiri Pulao-

Ingredients:
Basmathi Rice-1 cup uncooked
Salt
Onion chopped-1 cup
Peas-a handful
Oil-1 tbsp
Ghee-2 tbsp
Pineapple pieces chopped-1 cup

1. To fry in a drop of oil or ghee and grind:
cloves-4
Jeera-1tsp
Channa dhal-1 tsp
Dhaniya(Coriander seeds)-1 tsp
Red chillis-3

2. To fry in 1/2 tsp of oil and set aside:
Chopped almonds-2 tsp
Cashews-1 tsp
Raisins(I used dark colored ones)-2 tbsp or as you wish
Star anise-1
Cinnamon-1

Method:
Soak basmathi rice in water for 1/2 hour and cook till done and set aside.
In a drop of oil, fry ingredients mentioned under number 1 and grind to a fine powder.
Again, fry the ingredients mentioned under number 2 and set aside.
In remaining oil and ghee, fry chopped onions till golden brown. Add frozen peas and salt and cook for another 2 minutes.
Mix everything together(onions-peas mixture, ground powder, fried nuts and raisins) with rice adding some salt.
Finally add pineapple pieces and serve hot.

Variation:If you don't want to use South Indian spice powder mentioned under number 1, you may omit it. Instead fry green chilli and ginger garlic paste in oil/ghee along with onions- peas mixture and cook rice and saffron together. Rest of the procedure is the same. But I haven't tried it.

I was happy with the way Kashmiri Pulao turned out!




Sending this to Srivalli's Rice mela.

Spinach Carrot Pulao & Paneer Fry

One dish meal is always a life saver. Served with a simple raita, can make a very good satisfying meal. This pulao can be made in a jiffy. Not much chopping required. If you have the chopped veggies at hand, this is very simple and no grinding of masalas needed. I wanted to make a tasty one dish meal with minimum work and finally it turned out to be the way I wanted. It was very flavorful with the whole spices and crunchy while biting into the crisp carrots.

Ingredients

Chopped spinach - 2 cups Carrots chopped into small cubes - 1/2 cup Rice - 1 cup Onions sliced - 1 nos Red chilly powder - 1/4 tspn Ghee/oil - 1 tblspn saunf - 1 tspn Cardamom - 2 pods Cloves - 3 nos Cinnamom - 1" Poppy seeds - 1/2 tspn Wash and soak the rice in 2 cups of water for 30 minutes. If you are hard pressed for time, you can avoid soaking. Still it comes out well. Heat ghee/oil in a pan. Add all the spices. Roast till fragrant. Add sliced onion and suate till they turn pink. Add chopped carrots and cook till it is tender but crisp. Add chopped spinach and cook till the they wilt. Drain the rice and reserve the soaked water. Tip off the soaked rice. Saute for 5 minutes. Add salt and red chilly powder. Add the reserved water. Cover and cook in the same kadai. Stir the rice in between. Rice will be cooked in 20 minutes. You can either microwave for 25 minutes or pressure cook for 2 whistles. I have served with MW roasted papad, pan roasted paneer and cucumber raita. Cucumber Raita Grated cucumber, 3 slit green chillies, a teaspoon of jeera/cumin powder and salt is mixed to a cup of whipped curd. Garnish with some chopped coriander. Paneer fry Cubed paneer - 15 nos For marinade Hung curd - 1 tblspn Tomato sauce - 1 1/2 tblspn Pepper powder - 1/2 tspn salt Beat all the ingredients of marinade till smooth. Marinate the paneer for 30 minutes. Sprinkle few drops of oil on a tawa. Place the paneer pieces and cook on low flame. When one side is browned, flip the paneer and cook the other side too. This makes a good starter too. Spinach Carrot Pulao is going to Srivalli's Rice Mela JFI:Carrots hosted by The Cooker Sapadu Ready Event hosted by Aartee of Nalabagham

Roulade

It's a great pleasure to know Jxxx recently. We've some similarities such as buying a "weird" oven which had given us lots of headache and fun too! There are some sense of humour between our conversation. The most similarities is we've a same interest, BAKING!

We just notice we're baking swiss roll in the same time without telling each other until I saw her posting. And it'd given us so much things to talk about through the comments corner. That, I feel so much interesting.

I baked two roulade days ago, they're almost the same which is rolled with chocolate sponge with oreo biscuits crumbs. It's just the decoration had a bit different which had added strawberries. The oreo chocolate roulade taste richer whereas the strawberry chocolate roulade is much refreshing.

Recipe:

5 whole large eggs
125g sugar
1g salt
100g plain flour

2g baking soda
15ml oil
50ml milk
20g cocoa powder
200ml whipping cream

20g caster sugar

1 pack of oreo biscuits (punch it into crumbs)

some strawberries

How I made it:

1. Mix cocoa powder, milk and oil until a thick paste.
2. Whip the eggs and gradually add in sugar. Whip until very light yellow and fluffy.
3. Fold in shifted plain flour and baking soda. Do this gently.
4. Fold in cocoa paste (1) until well combine. Pour into a rectangular baking pan with baking paper.
5. Bake at 200'C preheated oven for 15 minutes.
6. Remove the cake together with the baking paper onto a wire rack and quickly put the whole thing into a big plastic bag until it completely cool. (Make sure no air will go into the plastic bag. This is to prevent the cake drying and keep moisture so that it wouldn't crack during the rolling process.
7. When the cake completely cool down, whip the cream until thicken. Fold in some oreo crumbs. Spread the oreo cream onto the cake evenly and roll in carefully.
8. Spread some leftover oreo cream onto the cake roll surface and garnish with oreo crumbs.
9. Put it in the fridge for an hour before slice. Best served in two days.