Vegetable rice with spices

Ingredients

• 150 g Basmati rice – wash rice and soak it for 20 minutes

• 1 large red onion – sliced

• 2-3 vegetable of your choice (I used zucchini & frozen peas in recipe video)

• 4 small bay leaves

• ½ cinnamon stick

• 2 teaspoons cumin seeds

• 1.5 teaspoon fennel seeds

• 8 cloves – coarsely crushed in a mortar

• 12 black peppercorns – coarsely crushed in a mortar

• 5 cardamom pods – keep only the seeds and coarsely crush them in a mortar

• 2 tablespoons raisins

• A mix of nuts of your choice (eg. almonds & cashews)

• 2 tsp oil/ ghee (for non-vegans)

Procedure

• Heat the oil in a saucepan. Add bay leaves, cinnamon, fennel and cumin seeds. Saute for about 30 seconds. The cumin & fennel seeds will start to sizzle. The oil should be really hot before adding the spices so that they sizzle immediately!

• Then add cloves, black pepper, cardamom, and fry for 2-3 minutes. We are tempering ( a process I explained in my article on spices link here) so that all the spices give out their aromas & flavours.

• Now add onions and fry them till slightly caramelised.

• Add raisins and chopped nuts. Fry for 2-3 minutes. In the meanwhile, drain the water from the basmati rice & keep aside.

• Now add the soaked rice to the saucepan.

• Fry the rice for about 3-5 minutes.

• Add vegetables of your choice ( I have used zucchini & frozen peas in the recipe video- link here).

• Add 300 ml of water & salt as per taste.

• Bring it to boil, reduce heat and cook for 7 minutes or till the rice is done!

• Serve with chutney (sauce) made out of fresh coriander, coconut yoghurt & fresh ginger (recipe towards the end of video).