Recipe: Tomato rice

This rice preparation is a favourite of the family. It is spicy, tangy and well balanced and is a meal in itself. It can be had with just papads or a raita. I serve it with a bland gourd curry (kootu) as the rice is spicy.

The recipe calls for dhania powder and chilli powder, however I use my sambar powder instead as the sambar powder contains a lot more spices, this enhances the flavour and taste of the rice. Actually, in most dishes I use sambar powder in place of dhania powder, which gives an excellent aroma to the dish.

Coconut milk is an important ingredient in this recipe. I make cooconut milk by blending fresh grated coconut with ½ cup of warm water and straining it through a colander. I repeat the process with some more warm water to extract all the remaining milk from the coconut.(While blending the coconut, I add the garlic and ginger to it, so that the juices are extracted along with the coconut milk). Ready made coconut milk can also be used.

Try this recipe and enjoy.

Ingredients:

Tomatoes : 250gms
Basmati rice : 1 cup
Coconut milk : 1 cup
Ginger : 2” piece
Garlic : 6 or more pods (as per taste)
Onion : 100gms.
Green chillies : 2 or 3
Cloves : 2
Cinnamon : 1” stick
Black cardamom : 1 no.
Bay leaves : 1 or 2
Dhania powder : 1 tbsp.
Chilli powder : 1 or 2 tsp (as per taste)
Turmeric powder : 1 tsp.
Salt to taste
Ghee or oil : 2 tbsp.

Cashew nuts : for garnishing.
Curry leaves and coriander leaves for garnishing.



Preparation:

Blanch the tomatoes by dipping in boiling water for 5 minutes and immediately dipping in cold water. Remove the skin (blanching helps in removing the skin easily). Make a puree of the tomatoes. Keep aside.

Pepare coconut milk as explained above or use ready made coconut milk. Extract the juice of ginger and garlic by blending and straining the juice. Keep aside.

Slice the onions and slit the green chillies.

Wash and soak the rice for 10 minutes. Heat ghee in a pressure cooker and fry the cashew nut to a golden brown color. Remove and keep aside for garnishing. Fry the onions to a golden brown. Remove and keep aside for garnishing. Into the same ghee, add the whole garam masalas (cloves, cinnamon and cardamom) and bay leaf. When they stop spluttering, add the slit green chillies and saute for a minute. Add the rice and fry till the rice starts spluttering. Add the tomato puree and coconut milk and juice of ginger and garlic. As the tomato puree is quite thick it provides only half its measure of water for the rice to cook. The ratio of water to rice for cooking the rice varies depending on the rice. Normally basmati rice will need two cups of water to one cup of rice. If quantity of coconut milk used is 1 cup and tomato puree is 1 cup, we need to add an additional half cup of water to the rice for cooking. Add the dhania powder, chilli powder (or the sambar powder), turmeric powder and salt. Close the pressure cooker and cook the rice with the weight valve on. When done, garnish with curry leaves, coriander leaves and cahsew nuts and fried onions.

ENJOY!
P.S.: Of course, this is my entry for JFI Tomatoes