Tomato Rice and Cheese Peas Pulav

Tomato Rice

This is a very gentle, subtle flavoured rice... i love it!

Take 5 generous handfuls of rice and soak in water for about an hour. Wash the rice well and bung it into a cooker.
Puree 7-8 tomatoes and optionally cook it for a while in olive oil. Add this to the rice. I find that cooking the puree before adding to the rice in the cooker somehow enhances the flavour.

Add to it some green peas (depends on how much you like them, I add about a small cup full of them). Peel 2 carrots and slice them into medium roundels. Add to the rice. You could also add a chunkily chopped potato (don’t remove the skin). Add a finely chopped chopped tomato as well. In the photo below i have also added a few chunks of mock meat that shilpa got for us from singapore... This is absolutely optional :)




Next add 10-15 fresh basil leaves. Also add lots of olive oil, I just let it glug out of the bottle for a bit ☺. Finally add a small blob of butter. Add salt to taste. Add water so that it completely covers the entire mixture. And pressure cook for three whistles and simmer for 10ish minutes after that. Wait for the cooker to cool down before opening it.

Serve piping hot. Tzatziki (recipe coming real soon) will go really well with it. As well as fresh dahi.



You could also change the flavour by doing a garlic tadka. (Heat Olive oil and add 2 mashed or very finely sliced garlic cloves. Add to the rice and mix it up well).

There is a variation to this. I call it cheese peas Pulav.
You don’t add the tomatoes and carrots to the rice. Just add lots of green peas and 2 chunkily sliced potatoes and depending on how many calories you want to watch out for heaps of grated cheese. Cheddar works best. And follow the recipe exactly as above.