EXPRESS PANEER PULAV

Sounds like a fast food menu, doesn't it? Ha Ha

As the name suggests, you can prepare this Pulav sooper quick compared to the conventional fry and grind method and today's lead role is played by Paneer.

Pulav is a nice heavy rice-based meal, generally eaten with Raita (Spicy yogurt mix) or with Plain curry or just as is, like I do when I am hungry. I ll post the recipes for these side dishes someday. Pulav can be as hot and spicy as you want or as mild as you wish. The one you are seeing in the attached pictures, was made when I was invited to Thanksgiving dinner at my friend, Trella's place. I made it very mild so they could all taste and sure they did like it. It is always fun to introduce Indian food to all my Non-Indian friends around me, and never have I heard anything less than awesome. Well, either they really liked my food or they are just being very sweet to me. The only way I will know the truth is if you try my recipes and post comments. :-)

 

So to make this Pulav you will definitely need

• 2 cups basmati or long grain white rice
• 3 tbsp mint chutney
• 1 big onion chopped lengthwise
• 1 green pepper (capsicum) chopped into 1 inch thin strips
• 1/2 cup fresh or frozen sweet peas
• 1 cup diced Paneer
• 8 cloves garlic
• 2 tbsp butter
• 1/4 cup oil (Olive, Sunflower, Vegetable or Canola)
• 2 tsp white pepper powder
• 1 tsp garam masala
• 1 tsp cumin powder
• 2 tsp store bought pulav powder
• Salt to taste

There are certain compromises that can be made here. For instance, you could use black pepper powder instead of white, or garlic paste instead of fresh garlic, or even better use fresh mint and grind it to a paste. One of my major rules to cook is to know when to break the rules. So try this recipe as is first and when you feel comfortable with the method, tweak it as your spatula guides.

To start with, heat butter in a large stir-fry pan. Just when it starts to melt, grate all the garlic cloves right into it. Saute it till it turns brown. Now wash the rice and add this roasted garlic and mint chutney along with 4 cups of water and some salt. Give it a good stir so that the raw rice, butter, garlic and salt all blend nicely when cooked. Cook this rice mixture in your own conventional method, be it in a microwave or a rice cooker or a pressure cooker. 

For the next step, make sure you keep the same stir-fry pan that you roasted garlic in, because the flavors still hanging in the pan will get infused in all the further ingredients. Heat oil and add chunks of Paneer to it. Fry Paneer till it turns golden brown, then take it out on a plate. Save the oil in the pan for onions and green pepper and while frying these, sprinkle white pepper powder, garam masala, jeera masala and pulav powder on the veggies. Once you see oil separating, add sweet peas. Saute it well and add salt when it is almost done. To this go ahead and add the fried Paneer.

On the other end, rice would have cooked with abundance of flavor from mint and garlic. Toss this rice to the stir-fry pan and give it a good mix with the veggies and Paneer. Do not forget to check the salt content. That's it! There you go, a brilliant Paneer Pulav prepared so quick that you could still catch your favorite episode on TV.

Points to note:

• You could skip the store bought Pulav masala powder and prepare it fresh at home, in which case the recipe would not have the title "Express".
• When you cook rice for the Pulav, add a little less water than you usually do. Otherwise the grains will break when you mix it with the veggies and masala.
• You could add a couple of cloves, cumin seeds and bay leaves into the heated oil before adding onions and green peppers. But with so much flavor already present in the masala, this is definitely optional.
• Do not use curry leaves or cilantro (coriander) to garnish. It totally doesn't go well with this particular version of Pulav.

There are days when I love to take my own sweet time to cook, but some days demand me to wrap it up as quick as possible. For days like that, try out my Express Paneer Pulav and drop in your words of experience.