Vegetable Pulao (Indian Style Vegetable Rice)

This is one of the popular vegetarian recipes from India – Vegetable Pulao, which simply is, basmathi rice cooked with vegetables. The result is an absolutely delicious fare! It was the weekend and since I had cooked some chicken, I thought it would be great to cook some vegetarian rice to have with the chicken. So I started with the preparation hoping that it would turn out to be a great lunch! And thankfully…it turned out to be awesome :)

So lets start with the ingredients

1 cup basmati rice, cleaned and soaked in water for half an hour
1 medium sized onion finely chopped
Half cup diced carrots
Half cup chopped beans
Half cup fresh peas (this is purely optional)
1 tsp ginger-garlic paste
2-3 green chilies slit in half
1 tbsp ghee (if you do not have ghee, you can use unsalted cooking butter)
2 tbsp oil
5 cloves
3-4 whole cardamoms
1” cinnamon
2 bay leaves
10- 12 cashew nuts
Salt to taste

Once you’ve got all the ingredients in place..it’s time to start cooking !!! So lets start…

In a pan, add the ghee and oil. Once hot, add the spices – bay leaves, cardamoms, cloves, cinnamon. Also add the cashew nuts. Fry them for a few minutes. You would soon start getting the aroma from the spices. Uhhhhh…smells good already!! Then add the onions and the chilies.

Continue to fry the onions till it turns golden brown. Then add the ginger garlic paste and stir fry for a couple of minutes. Now add the veggies – carrots and beans. We can add the peas a little later, since peas cook faster than carrots and beans. Cook the vegetables for a few minutes. Add peas and stir for a couple more minutes. Add salt and give the mix a good stir.

Now add the basmathi rice that has been soaked in water. Continue to fry the rice for a few minutes. Now add 2 cups water. Usually, the water to rice ratio is 2:1, ie, two cups water for one cup rice. However, sometimes, it could be more or less.

Once you have added the water, mix the rice mixture so that all the ingredients are mixed well. Make sure you don’t break the rice in the process. Basmathi rice is usually long grained, so we would not want to break the grains. Take the spoon against the edge of the pan and around, so that we don’t break the rice grains. Cover the pan and continue cooking till the rice is done. However, do not forget to peek occasionally into the pan as it cooks to make sure that the water is sufficient and the rice grains do not stick to the bottom of the pan and gets over fried/cooked. So gently stir the mixture occasionally. If more water is required, gently sprinkle additional water and continue cooking. Also ensure that you do not add too much water, that the rice turns to porridge :). The water should just be sufficient to cook the rice.

Once the rice is cooked, turn off the heat and remove from the stove. Keep it covered for a couple of minutes.

Vegetable Pulao is now ready..yaayyy! Serve hot with vegetable/meat curry and you have a wonderful tasty lunch. You can also make some onion raitha (salad made from onions and yogurt), which goes very well with the pulao. It’s simple and easy to make and I will post the recipe in a separate blog post.

My lunch that weekend was great…veg pulao with onion raitha and chicken fry….yummmm!!! Hope you enjoy making the dish and eating it too…. :) …Adios!!!

Claypit - Austin, TX

Been a while...so time for another post and another restaurant review !!! Again..this is a desi restaurant, but before I proceed further... CLAYPIT totally rocks!

Claypit is located in downtown Austin. Downtown Austin is the popular weekend hangout spot...wat with rows and rows of pubs, night clubs, live music and well...a lot of colorful people (a wideeee grin :D). I have been to claypit a number of times, and there has never been a time when I have returned disappointed!

They claim to be one of the best Indian restaurants in Austin..and trust me...they truly are ! I haven't been to their lunch buffets, but I have had dinner there plenty of times...their food tastes authentically desi...yum yum !! So for all those who miss..hot and spicy indian food...this is the place to go. From their appetizers to the entrées… they have it all. Not to forget their desserts. I can’t really rave about their desserts coz I haven’t tasted those...but I can go on and on about their appetizers and entrées.
Their menu is great...from veg to non-veg...they have it all. From naans and rotis...to tandoori chicken...biriyani...and well even meen curry (fish curry)...their spread is mouth watering. I was fortunate to taste their naans, meen curry, tandoori chicken bites, lamb roganjosh, lamb biriyani...and the list seems never endless (now dont get me wrong...I dint eat it all at the same time !!!) Every morsel was mouth watering and tasty..with authentic indian taste. And I must specially mention their biriyani...we were skeptical to order biriyani coz not many Indian restaurants in the US serve good desi biriyani...but Claypit served such tasty lamb biriyani (yummm!!)..quite unlike what I have never tasted elsewhere. The lamb roganjosh was great as well. I cannot say much about the tandoori chicken bites, coz I felt that the meat was not well marinated as I did not get the taste of the masala...although I must confess that it looked deliciously appetizing!

Enough said about the food..lets talk about the decor and the atmosphere. The decor was simple and inviting..wooden floors...natural walls (limestone ?? not sure...)...little floating candles...and just pure warmth...this is a place that welcomes all :)....

So if you have been yearning to eat desi food..Claypit is the place to be. The place is a litle pricey..but hey...if the food's good..its worth the price ! But remember...this place gets real crowded...so dont forget to make a reservation...and one small tip...ask to be seated at the basement...it gives you a more private relaxed feel, the only drawback being...it might get a little too hot down there during the Texas summer !

If you want to enjoy great tasting, delicious and authentic Indian food...dont miss Claypit ! Cheers !!

Tandoori Hut..A Desi Restaurant

This is my second attempt at writing restaurant reviews & today the review is on a restaurant that serves desi food and its called 'Tandoori Hut'. We had actually passed by this restaurant a couple of weeks earlier and the name 'Tandoori' caught my attention coz I am a big fan of tandoori food. And finally I got to visit this place for lunch yesterday.

To start off the review, the appearance and the ambience of the place was not very welcoming. The restaurant decor...well...it left asking for more...a 'lot lot more'. Nor was there a cheerful person at the front desk to welcome you. So we walked into this seemingly quiet place and were seated at a corner table (well...there was just only one other family around..so it had to be quiet. Can you imagine...at noon on a sunday afternoon you would expect any restaurant to be buzzing with activity. Sadly...not this one !) . Even the table arrangement was pretty shabby. Not a good first impression at all !!!

So we put behind the 'not-so-great' first impression and began our lunch. It was a buffet lunch. In a land where salads are an important part of any meal, the salads served here were not even close to appetizing. As I write this blog, I am not able to recall the salads, coz it was so badly presented that I just had a glimpse of it. Moving on to the other food..well...they did have both vegetarian and non-vegetarian...they had a couple of chicken dishes and surprisingly even beef (that was veryyy surprising, coz very few Indian restaurants serve beef). Their chicken tikka tasted absolutely lovely. It was well cooked and you could taste the wonderful masala (just goes to show how well marinated it was). But unfortunately, that seemed to be THE only dish to get a 4 star as far as taste was concerned, and yes off course the fresh nan too, which was made fresh and served hot at your table. I could probably rate the nan at four and a half out of five !!

But for these two dishes, there was not another dish that made you scream out and say 'Whowww....thats some awesome Indian food'. Their other chicken dishes seemed to lack in flavor, their dhals and veg curry seemed way off taste. Even something as popular as channa and potatoes left us wondering what was wrong with the taste!! Surprisingly, this place did not serve paneer. I say surprising coz there has never been a single tandoori restaurant that I have visited that did not serve naan and paneer !! So being a paneer fan, this was a little disappointing too !!

Finally, it was time for some desserts!!! But well..where were the desserts ? Ok...found it...tucked away in the middle of other food was 'kesari'. Just one dessert ? Thats seems weird !! Oh ok... I was wrong...there was another sweet at the other end of the table near the salad ! Well..that looked like some milk sweet...Milk Khoa..kheer ? No idea !! Coz there was no name card displaying what the dish was. Another black mark for the way the food was presented !! And let me tell you this…the desserts did not taste great either.

Usually, the way the food is presented is very important in a buffet setting. It starts with salads and appetizers...moves on to the main course and then ends with the desserts !! And every dish has a neatly placed name card to indicate what it was. But it looks like this restaurant tried to override all the rules of neat presentation !!! No name cards..no clean presentation...and not so great tasting food !! Tandoori Hut was just not a place that I would want to visit again.

But before I forget to mention, their buffet was about two to three dollars less than other places. But that still does not justify the below average spread and taste that this place offered !!! So to sum it up...Tandoori Hut was a disappointing experience!!

Truly Zion !!!

Have you ever gone through moments where you have been amazed at the beauty around you and wondered at the wisdom of the Almighty who created it ? Well...I did..when I visited Zion National Park in Utah. I am a nature lover, but I definitely was not prepared for what was awaiting me in Zion.

When I was first told that we were going to Utah, I was wondering what was popular in Utah. I had never heard of Utah being a traveler's haven, so I was skeptical on what it would hold for us.

Neither did I know what a National Park was, nor had I ever visited one before and hence at that moment, I thot a national park would merely be a vast grassland (blame my ignorance !!!). But I was wrong and I was in for a BIG surprise...and a pleasant surprise indeed it was.

Zion was an amazingly beautiful place. As we drove through the park, climbing higher in elevation as we turned each bend, I was stunned by the beauty of the huge red rocks and formations around me. The weather was heavenly and I was glad that we had left the hot Texas summer behind. Zion seemed to be place out of a fairy tale, all around was mountainous huge rock formations, some of which was blasted to create a road for modern day park visitors. As you drive through this wonderland, stories of native indians & early explorers take you back to ancient times..where native indians made their dwelling among the mountains, hunted deers and other mountain animals for food, made fire from stone...and lived as nomads....where early explorers used donkeys/mules to travel and braved the dangers of an unkonown land, to discover the beauty that lay around.

If you thought that there were just rocks and rocks and more rocks, you are mistaken. There a number of hiking trails and observations points that take you high up the mountains to view the natural wonders of zion. From the canyon overlook trail, to the emerald waters trail to the hike to angels landing, and many many others..this is just the place to be if you are a nature lover!!! But if your one with a fear for heights...well...all I would say is ...garner the courage to overcome your fear and I assure you, it would be worth it :)

This post would get too long if I was to detail the wonderful trails I went on. I will be back, with another post on the trails. Till then...hope you liked the read so far. Adios !!! :)