This is exactly what the name suggests. We cooked this rice today morning when we had a curry left over from last night, but did not have bread or rice to go with it. So I made this quick lightly spiced rice in a jiffy before we both left for work. It is a kid friendly dish  because it is very lightly flavored and if your kids like cashew-nuts and raisins, they sure will enjoy this rice.

Butter/Ghee – 2 tsp

Onion – 1/2, thinly sliced

Unsalted cashewnuts – 1 T

Golden Raisins – 1 T

Cloves – 3

Bay leaf – 1

Cardamom – 2 whole pods

Cinnamon – 1/4 inch stick

Basmati rice – 1.5 cups

Water – 3 cups

Salt to taste

• In a dutch oven or pressure cooker, heat butter and when it melts completely, add the onions
• Saute until the onions caramelize ( this takes about 8-10 minutes)
• As soon as the onions caramelize, add cashew nuts and raisins and saute for a minute
• Take it off the pan and place it in a bowl
• In the same dutch oven ( see if you need more butter), add all the whole spices and saute for 30 seconds
• Add rice and stir well. Stir in the water and salt.
• Check for seasonings and allow the water to come to a boil
• Reduce to simmer and close it with a lid
• Cook for 12- 15 minutes or until the rice is cooked
• Fold in the caramelized onions, raisins and cashew nuts and serve warm.

Our intention was to have this with the spicy mushroom curry we made last night. But I personally liked the delicate flavors of the rice so much, that I ate the rice first all by itself savoring every spoonful and then had the mushroom curry. The recipe for curry coming up next

Variations:  You can add peas and carrots to this as well.

On our face book page, we had asked readers what recipes they would like to see  on this website. We got a whole range of ideas. A few wanted one pot dishes, slow cooker recipes, Samosas, Southern fried chicken etc. We will definitely try to cook up all you asked for. To start off, lets make a one pot dish which is tasty and healthy all at the same time. It is easy to make for dinner and something you can carry to work the next day for lunch.

We used fresh vegetables, but if you are hard pressed for time you can always use a bag of frozen peas and carrot. Growing up, amma would try to make a lot of these one pot dishes which we loved to take to school for lunch. Rasam and sambhar were not our favorites as the rice would absorb everything and what we will encounter is a big hard blob of rice that one would not want to eat. We were lucky, there was a guy called Chimney( I think it was his nickname) who had the most number of hooks/handles in his cycle. He was paid a fixed amount for the month and he would come  at a certain time everyday to pick up our lunch to deliver piping hot food  to us at school. He carried more than 50 lunch bags on his cycle. We would wait for him in a designated corner and he would there for us to pick up our empty lunch bags. He was a fun guy who was always cracking jokes and handed our lunch box to us telling us a joke or having something really nice to say. Until we had him drop lunch off we had hot food. When we moved  to a different state and had to carry our lunch in the morning, one pot dishes like this was a blessing. I tell you we were spoiled.

Coming to the recipe, we liked the idea of using bulgur wheat instead of rice and we LOVED it. According to Wikipedia, “Bulgur is more nutritious than rice and couscous, because it contains more fiber and more vitamins and minerals and has a lower glycemic index than white rice or couscous.Bulgur has a glycemic index of 46.”

Oil – 1 T

Butter – 1 T

Whole Cardamom – 4

Wholes Cloves – 2

Ginger – 1 tsp, minced

Garlic – 2 tsp, minced

green chilly – 2 slit in half (optional)

Chopped Onion – 1/2 cup

Carrots – 2, small dice

Potato – 1, small dice

Peas – 1/4 cup

Mushroom – 4, sliced

Turmeric – 1/2 tsp (optional)

Mint – 1 T, finely chopped

Cilantro – 1 T, finely chopped

Cracked/ bulgur Wheat – 2 cups

Water – 4 cups

salt to taste

• Heat butter and oil in a saute pan with a lid
• When the oil is hot, add cardamom and cloves and immediately add onions.
• Sweat the onions and add ginger and garlic.
• Cook for about 30 – 45 seconds.
• Stir in all the veggies and saute well.
• Add turmeric, fresh herbs and bulgur wheat
• Stir well such they are all well incorporated
• Add salt and water and bring it to a boil.
• when it comes to a boil, reduce to the lowest setting on your stove, close with a lid and let it cook until the water evaporates completely ( about 25-30 minutes)

Notes: Use any vegetable you have in the refrigerator. You can add bell pepper, green beans or endamame as well.

Options: You can cook this in a pressure cooker or saute everything and transfer to a rice cooker ( than it becomes two pots cooking)

Variations: You can omit whole spices and that will give you a very delicately flavored pilaf

This recipe goes to Radhika and Sudeshana for the Tiffin or Lunch box event.

• Heat the vinegar and sugar in a saucepan along with all ingredients except mango,ginger and garlic.
• Simmer on very low heat for about 7 minutes.
• Add the mango,ginger and garlic and simmer until the mango is mushy and vinegar has evaporated.
• Cool and store in a air tight container.

The recipe says leave it for a few days before serving. But I did not have the patience and started having it on the pretext of tasting it.

When I am not really in the mood to do anything big, snacks like these come in handy. This is very healthy as it has absolutely no oil. Throw in all the ingredients below for a nice evening snack or any time of the day!

Garbanzo beans – 1 cup (dry)
Red Onion – 1/2 cup diced
Tomatoes – 1 finely chopped
Carrots grated – 1/4 cup
Juice of 1/2 a lime or however sour you like it
Green chilly – 1 chopped
Cilantro for garnish
Salt & pepper to taste

If you have raw mango, chop a few pieces and throw that in too.