Quick Spinach Pulao

If you are craving for a nice meal, a tasty meal, but don’t have much time (who has?), then this quick and easy pulao is for you. It is extremely nutritious — well the name says it all doesn’t it?

It is also incredbly delicious, try it!

Ingredients

FOR THE TADKA( Hot Oil):

2 inch cinnamon

5-6 cloves

2 elaichi

2 bayleaves

2 red chillies- dried

OTHER INGREDIENTS

Spinach- 1 cup, chopped

Onion- 1/4 cup chopped

Sweet corn- 1/4 cup, fresh or thawed

Garlic salt/ 1 garlic clove grated

Salt

Pepper- 1/4 tsp

Garam masala- 1/4 tsp

Oil- 1 tbsp

Rice- 1 cup

Hot water- 2 1/4 cups

3. Chop onions and slice the spinach fine.

I like to microwave the sweetcorn, it gets softer, but then I usually use it straight from the freezer, without giving it time to thaw. Everything is so last minute, you see.

I am a person who works on impulse, rather than meticulous planning, you can figure it out from the way I cook 🙂

4. Grate the garlic clove.

5. In a pan, heat 2 tsp oilput the ingredients for the tadka. In about 1 minute, the cardamom should start to swell and the other spices will change colour. DO not let them brown too much.

6. Quickly, add in the onions. When they soften a bit, add the garlic clove. Fry for a minute. Alternatively, you could just use garlic salt instead of regular salt in this recipe.

7. Now, add in the sweet corn and fry for 1-2 minutes till nice and glossy.

Add the salt and pepper now, so that the sweetcorn absorbs the flavour. Mix for 30 seconds.

8. Add the drained rice. Mix well. Fry for 1-2 minutes.

9. Add in the spinach. Fry for another couple of minutes. Do not overcook the spinach because it is going to cook again with the rice.

10. Add some more salt and add in the garam masala at this stage.

11. Add hot water. Hot water is very important when cooking pulaos or biryanis, because it helps the rice grain stay firm and unbroken.

The thumb rule if you are cooking Basmati rice, is to use 2 parts of water to 1 part of rice- and if adding any vegetables, add 1/4 cup extra to compensate for their volume.

12. Now , if you are going to cook in the same pan, let the water boil and then put a tight fitting lid, reduce the flame and let cook on low heat for about 12-14 minutes.

I generally toss everything into my large microwave container and cook for 14 minutes.

Simple.