spinach and onion pulao

A comforting rice dish with an added dose of greens. A ‘pulao’ is a one pot rice dish made by cooking basmati rice with aromatic whole spices. It can be served on its own or accompany other dishes. I like keeping it simple and eating this tasty dish with a dollop of plain yogurt. This recipe comes from Chetna Makan’s book called ’30 minute Indian’ (needless to say, I love every recipe in this book!) and it really does only take 15 minutes!

Serves 4

Ingredients

2 tablespoons ghee* or butter

2 onions, thinly sliced

2 garlic cloves, finely chopped

1 tablespoon fennel seeds

4 black peppercorns

4 cloves

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon chili powder

200g (7 oz) spinach leaves, finely chopped

250g (9 oz) basmati rice, washed and drained

650 ml (16 fl oz) boil water

Creating the Magic!

 Heat the ghee (or butter) in a pan, add the onions and cover a medium heat for 5 minutes until they start to change color. Then add the garlic and for a minute.

 Meanwhile, heat a frying pan, add the fennel seeds, peppercorns, and cloves, and dry roast over a low heat for 1-2 minutes until you can smell their aroma and they start to color.

Transfer to a spice grinder and blitz to a powder or use a pestle and mortar to finely grind them.

Stir the spice mix into the onions with the salt, chili powder and spinach. Then add the rice until it is well coated in the flavorings. Pour in the measured boiling water, mix well and bring to the boil, then cover and cook over a low heat for 14 minutes.

Take the pan off the heat and let the pulao rest, covered, for 5 minutes before serving.

*Ghee is butter that has been simmered and strained to remove the water. Want to learn more about ghee? Check out this article.