Vegetable Pulao with Egg

This is the first dish that I’ve made from a fellow WordPresser’s blog, since I started my blog last month, specifically from this recipe: Vegetable Rice Palao.

This is a great vegetarian dish with a combination of spicy (especially with the quite hot Indian chili powder I had) and sweet (with the raisins, sweet corn, and carrots)!

I had most of the ingredients on hand, except I used a quality garam masala rather than cardamom and whole cinnamon; I put two star anise pieces in as well.  Also, *gasp* I didn’t have basmati rice, so substituted rinsed jasmine rice instead.  I cut the recipe to 2/3 (i.e., 2 cups uncooked rice, but the suggested amount of vegetables, raisins, and cashews), only because it’s quite a large quantity and I meant to eat this as a standalone meal, so I wanted a slightly higher ratio of vegetables to rice.  The suggested pairing with Egg Curry sounds great, but I was being lazy so just made some hard-boiled eggs, and buried them in the pulao to add some more protein to the dish after removing it from the heat.

Hmm, in hindsight, that’s probably too many changes to a desi chick’s recipe, but that made it fun for me; perhaps I have a problem following directions. :-)

Even with the reduced amount of rice, I got 6 full servings, some of which I served to friends with raita and garlic naan (Trader Joe’s).

Raita ingredients, stirred together:

• greek-style plain yogurt, 16 oz.
• cumin powder, 1/2 t.
• garam masala, 1/2 t.
• garlic, 3 cloves, dry roasted and minced
• carrot, 1, peeled and finely julienned short pieces
• cucumber, 1, peeled, seeded, and finely chopped
• onion, 1, small yellow, minced
• tomato, 2/3 can, fire-roasted, diced
• saffron (perhaps 6 threads)
• fresh lime juice, from one lime (or add progressively to taste)
• salt (to taste)

Vegetable Pulao with Egg and Raita