Vegetable fried rice V2
Hello peeps. One of my favourite cuisines is Indo-Chinese (It’s not chinese but indo-chinese. I know that’s not even an authentic cuisine technically but hey, my taste buds, my preferences :)). We would go out weekly once to have some basic indo-chinese food but now thanks to the current times, we don’t go out much to eat. Honestly, it’s not because we are restricting our movements a lot because Dubai is pretty much back to normal (well, new normal) but mostly because we’ve gotten used to not going out much and eating. Hence, been making it a point off late to make indo-chinese (atleast for myself if not for anyone else) for my weekend happy eating quota :). My sil/ co-sister made the worst mistake of teaching me her broccoli fried rice a few weeks back begas now I am just tweaking that recipe/ adapting left right center. God, this one came out so well I was almost on the verge of not giving D his share :D. Extremely simple to make, use any combination of veggies on hand. Recipe wise, very similar to the broccoli fried rice but I thought I’d capture it separately on the blog. I also made a random sauce to go along with it for D since he cannot easy this yumminess all on it’s own. But the sauce came out really well too. Unfortunately, did not note measurements of that. So the sauce will have to wait in terms of being blogged :D.
Anywho, in other news.. I taught Adya to make chai/ tea today. As in, the boy has watched me make tea now for years and has “sauteed” my tea (unnecessarily) on many occasions. However, today I made him do the entire thing right from filling water (excepting the final filtering). He really enjoyed doing it. However, later when I was video chatting with my amma, he told her he learnt how to make chai and in the list of ingredients promptly included ‘gravel’ :). Both amma and I burst out laughing because it was so funny. We knew instantly why he related tea powder to gravel but here goes the explanation for those people who don’t know about Adyant and his love :). Adyant loves cement mixer and so he associates anything and everything to cement mixer or something related to it. In his mind, the tea powder looks like gravel and in all honesty, I am quite impressed with the connection (though I shouldn’t have expected anything else). I am not sure if I’m gonna entrust Adya to make chai for me in the future but for now had a hearty laugh and a good cuppa chai :D.
- 1/2 cup basmati rice
- 2 tsp sesame oil
- 1 medium onion
- 1 tsp grated ginger
- 4 pods medium garlic
- 2 no green chillies
- 2 cups mixed veggies 1/2c chopped broccoli, 1 small capsicum, 1/2 carrot, 3/4c cabbage
- 10-12 no frozen paneer cubes
- 2.5 tsp mixed italian herbs
- 1/2 tbsp butter optional
- 4 tbsp spring onion optional
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Wash the basmati rice well and cook it using the open pot method adding 1/2t salt. Also place the frozen paneer cubes n a small vessel. Cover with hot water and set it aside.
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Once the rice is cooked (do not overcook), drain the excess water.
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Transfer the rice to a plate, spread it out and let it cool.
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While the rice is cooking, get going on the veggies.
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Wash all the veggies. Chop the broccoli florets, capsicum, carrot and cabbage into small pieces. Chop the onion finely. Slit the green chillies. Chop the spring onions. Set the greens aside and add the white to the regular onion. Also, grate the ginger and garlic.
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In a medium sized kadai/ skillet/ wok, heat 2t sesame oil. I kept the flame on high.
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Once hot, add the grated ginger, garli and slit green chillies.
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When they start to brown, add the diced onion.
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Saute till it starts to change colour.
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Now add all the chopped veggies, a little salt. Saute from time to time till the veggies cook (but are still crunchy). This should be roughly between 5-7 mins. Keep the flame on high and hence keep a close watch so as to not burn the veggies.
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Once the veggies are cooked, drain the paneer cubes, tear it into small pieces and add it to the veggies.
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Now add the cooked basmati rice, 1/2T butter and mix everything well.
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Check and adjust for salt/ seasoning.
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Finally top/ garnish with spring onions (if using) and turn off the heat.
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Serve hot!
- Use veggies of your choice. I personally felt that broccoli was a great addition for this rice.
- You can totally use ginger garlic paste if you have it ready made.
