Thursday, November 12, 2009

Brown Rice -- Mint Rice





Why are you on Orkut or FaceBook ?

Why would you want to see pictures of the girl-you-hated-in-Kindergarten holidaying in Corfu while you are shoveling snow in some god damn suburb of New York ?

How will it help to know that girl from section C third grade who used to come over for homework help has just been hired by the company who rejected your resume thrice ?

Why would you want to see your one time crush smiling at you from his profile pic, svelte wife, fat kids and a steel gray BMW in tow ?

Why would you in midst of a hectic day forgo lunch and pause to fish out a picture of yours from last summer when your tummy was still in and post it on Facebook ?

Why would you write comments like "Cho chweet baby" and "Best Couple ever" on your networked friend's pics when you really don't care a nickel about the baby or couple ?

Why would you want to see a person's life in delta(t) time and ruin yours in +t time ?

Why do you want to connect to people whom you you took no effort to remember even two years back when you were not Orkutting ?

Why do you hate Brown Rice ?

The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind,
The answer is blowin' in the wind





Early summer my neighbors had heaped me with bushels of mint leaves. I am not sure if Mint leaves come in bushel but any way I want to use that word so "bushel of mint leaves" it is. I am not a huge fan of Mint and anyway there was too much of it. When those leaves were almost wilting and crying for help I put them in the blender with few green chillies, made a paste and froze the paste. Result was my freezer was full of Ziploc bags holding pretty green frozen cubes of mint.

Most of those cubes I used to make a Pudina Rice with Brown Rice. Brown Rice is kind of a staple at our home for Saturday Lunch, if we are having a Saturday Lunch at all. Also if there is a Saturday Lunch it is usually a one pot meal, quick, easy convenient. The Mint Rice or Pudina Rice suits that purpose to the hilt. Flavorful it imbibes the Brown Basmati with a fragrance and taste that makes a Brown Rice hater just forget that he discriminates rice by color & creed.

Note: I am not on Orkut or Facebook, don't go finding me there. The questions are triggered by this very honest post and comments from real life friends


Read more...






Pudina Rice/Mint Rice



Prep

Soak 2 cups of Brown Basmati for half an hour. You can also use White Basmati but then the water required to cook will vary.

Make a paste of half of a large red onion(or 1 small red onion), 4-5 cloves of garlic, 1" of peeled ginger and 4 tbsp of Mint Leves (Pudina) paste. Add 2-3 green chillies to make the paste, I didn't because Saturday Lunches are for everyone in the family even the non-chili eaters. Note: My neighbors had given me lots & lots of mint/ pudina over summer, which I had transformed into a paste which I then froze, so that is why I say paste here. I am not sure but I think a bunch or two of mint would suffice. Update on 12/21: I did this again last week and this time I added corriander leaves along with the mint to make the paste. beautiful end result.

Start Cooking

Heat Oil

Fry 1/4 cup of cashews to lightly brown, remove and keep aside

Temper the oil with 4 clove, 2 green cardamom and 1" thin stick of cinnamon

Add the onion + garlic + ginger + mint paste and fry till you see the oil seeping out of the sides of the masala

Add 1 tsp of coriander powder, half a potato chopped in quarters, and any veggies you like. I added 1/3 cup of peas & carrots. Cauliflower cut in small florets would have worked very well too. Fry for 3-4 minutes with a little sprinkle of water

Drain the rice, smear with little ghee and add to above. Add 1/4 tsp of Biryani Masala and fry the rice for a couple of minutes

Add water to measure. For 2 cups of Brown Basmati I added about 5 cups of water. Read your rice package for directions.

Add salt and let the rice cook. Once the rice is cooked add the fried cashews and a pinch of sugar if you like sweet.

There your one pot meal is ready in no time

Serve with a papad, some yogurt or raita on the side and a salad of cucumber & radish

Similar Recipes:

Brown Rice -- Methi Rice

Brown Rice -- Tomato Rice

27 comments:

  1. lovely post!!!....and great recipe...:)

    nice..I like it a lot :)

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  2. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  3. Frankly have no idea. I am a member arm twisted by a couple of friends and curiosity. I check on the "friends" when I have a moment and it is fun to know what is going on in people's lives. I thought it is Lexus and not BMW these days among the desi crowd. Well I am behind the times anyway so never mind.

    Mint is one of those things I can't live without. Its good that way because the mint overgrown in my front yard is hard to eradicate

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  4. lol ! Hilarious!! well I still hate brown rice, but after such a nice intro might give it a try this Saturday ;)

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  5. Dear bong mom
    I am a fan of your blog ...great preamble on orkut facebook..cant stop reading it ....I will read the recipe later..
    By the way, your recipe of matar dal (that jeere, roshun,PeaNj sombora one, was a great hit yesterday among my bong friends, who are still stuck at your other matar dal recipe, with vegetables, and cant think of any other use of matar dal). Thank you
    good wishes

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  6. Good questions, so I'm making sure I don't befriend anybody who'll make me ask these questions of myself. But seriously - I'm having a lot of fun with social networking - but don't know how to 'position' myself on more than one, so I'm sticking to just one. I've even begun finding school, college and hostel friends who I fell out of touch with, and it's fun. That being said, I am not inviting (and won't accept) folks that I know/knew well but am not fond of, nostalgia be damned! So what if we studied together from primary school to college?

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  7. I have accounts in both places,Facebook once in three month i open it or orkut I almost forgot it. Created because one of my friend sent his pict (needed absolutely i should create one).
    People who have accounts tell : addicted!
    Do they have so much free time in their daily life? Is there someone interested what we had for dinner last night or where we went?
    I would say It is a virtual hangout! Life style!
    But I don't hate Brown rice and don't make any color difference I love mint !
    I absolutely like this post :)

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  8. If not exactly, I can say they are somewhat similar to my thoughts. :-)
    Am not on FB or Orkut or any social networking site ... have not given in to anybody's armtwisting. People now satisfy themselves by thinking either I don't exist or belong to some prehistoric era and refuse to grow. ;-)
    Pudina bhalobashi na, dhone pata o bhalobashi na, brown rice pai na ... ki lekha jaye recipe ta niye bolo toh? :-)

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  9. I must admit that I am an avid Facebooker. Off orkut now. Made some new friends thru F B. Caught up with some good friends after ages. And often wonder how to keep folks who are not really 'friends' out.

    Yes it is living your life in public. But then so is blogging

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  10. mm interesting questions but not me as I am not into these social networking activity. But from what I read ever where in the blogs the twitter and facebook demands lots of internet time and by the way u get addicted you start blabbering all that heppens to you on a day to day basis. I believe blog is a limited version of the same. Living in India I can't bear the expense that I need to spare for internet time for these kind of activities. I bet people soon will loose interest. The mint rice looks intersting and yes to one pot meals on Saturdays!

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  11. Garma Garam questions with delectable and yum looking mint rice....

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  12. Have finally got around to successfully growing mint in a pot! Who knows, when I have enough it might make it as this rice.

    Am not much of a any type of networker, social or otherwise. Yet I joined FB last week. Why? Don't know.......................

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  13. I am in FB, not in Orkut. I have to say that I did get connected to a couple of few of my school and college friends.. close ones. Not into to sharing everyday details, but it is easier for me to keep in touch with my cousins and friends via FB.

    Kaalkei bhabchilam Pudina pulav korbo, baiyre eto pudina.. eibar thanda te shukiye jaabe. I love brown rice ;-) well may be not in biryani.

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  14. JW
    Thanks :)

    Indo

    I am not on Orkut but I sometimes login with a close friend's account to see pics of other friends ;-) And when I see pics of people I see in real life, on Orkut, I realize how you get only one small slice of someones life there.

    Abhi

    Ok, convert :)

    Shama
    Thanks

    UshnishDa

    Thanks. Glad that your friends liked it

    Sra
    I was thinking of you while writing this. I wanted to hear your reaction since I know you like social networking :)

    Cham

    Seriously. Maybe people are so out of touch with friends in real life because of work pressure or whatever they network online

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  15. Sharmila
    :) Same here

    The Knife
    I am sure there are some incentives

    Nirmala
    You know I think it is an alternative to the tea time "gup-shup" we used to have before. Guess we are from dinosaur era and can't adjust to online networking so much ;-)

    KF

    So what is the answer :)

    Aparna

    Tell me in a month :) Mint grows really well, my neighbors get it back every year.
    And really now India celebrates Halloween too, had never heard of it until I came here, but then that was 10 years back

    Soma

    As I said there definitely are incentives

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  16. Hi Sandeepa,
    I recently registered on FB but ever since then havent logged in :) social networking doesnt interest me somehow. I love food blogging though :)does that qualify me into the dinosaur era?! :)LOL
    herbs of any kind are a pleasure to work with in cooking :) I am not a fan of brown rice though I dont mind having it once in a while.
    I know its healthier and all that, but I love my white rice :)
    nice pics.
    TC

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  17. I think I live my life on FB! Not fond of Orkut. In FB, I control who sees what and whose updates I want to see or not. Annoying thing for me is getting friend requests from folks I don't know, which of course I ignore. The trouble I have is ignoring requests from folks I know but don't particularly want as FB pals. So I accept requests and then block them from seeing anything I post and I also hide their posts, since I ahve no interest in them.

    Thanks for the Sukhothai mention. I'd forgotten about it. I've had some some delicious food there but sometimes it has been mediocre. Maybe the main chef's day off or something. But a great place when it's good.

    Hope you are doing well. And the kids too. I wanted to email you coz I need your take on something. WIll try to find your email address.

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  18. thanks! I have Anudivya's recipe (mixtomatch.blogspot.com) for mint pulao with white rice, which we all love..ans so, this will be a great variation!

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  19. this looks so yum,,.and u r so right bout the orkut nd facebook,.thig

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  20. I DO like the one site I'm on. A few more reasons why I like this activity - I've gotten to know the people behind their blogs, to some extent. And with my friends from school and college, it's interesting to see what they've become. How they've changed, what they really seem to be as opposed to all those years ago. Even with your close, everyday friends in the same city/country, you can learn more about them if they're active and react to various posts, and such. And it's not that we've (at least my friends and I) swapped real conversations for this site, we haven't, we've just added another dimension.

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  21. Such a funny post - you hit the nail on the head with the FB and Orkut!! Ha Ha ha Ha... I am relentless on FB, I do have some folks who like to share everything they are doing every hour. That seems to be overkill for me as well. I thinkt he key to moderation is to only add the friends who you really care about and want to keep in touch with. Errr.. the 687 friends list? Major put-off...

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  22. Dear, thats a very thoughtful post...I used wonder to whom these people update every second' of their life.

    Awesome recipe,...I like ur picture so much...pappad and mint rice, too good. And I love brown rice:)

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  23. Hi Sandeepa,

    I too wonder about Facebook etc -- even while my (nearly grown) kids use it. I expect that is a little different from adults searching for lost youth via the same -- at least we can teach our kids from the outset :)

    I don't hate brown rice at all -- and I am always glad to read a new way to use it -- your mint rice sounds delicious!

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  24. I'm on FB and everywhere I guess :D But I love love meeting old friends, however, better than me they are doing. Makes me move further!

    And Mint is one of my fave herbs. Try freezing it with ice - your ice cubes have a pretty green running through them!

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  25. Lovely way to have brown rice - I am forever trying to include it in our meals....and seems to be the season for "variety rice"! I just posted a sweet potato and spinach rice.

    I am only on FB and love that I can keep in touch with friends abroad and whats happening with them. I have ignored all requests from people who knew me in school and college but I have nothing in common with now. No colleagues from office either and no relatives too.

    This way I can post what I want to without wondering who's reading it and I don't get to see/hear things I'm not interested in (well almost). I have "hidden" all updates on games/quizzes etc etc and don't even see what other people are doing except their status updates and their pics.

    And btw, from all responses to my pic on FB, seems like it's they who are surprised that I look the way I look like now (must have been the two plaits and unibrow in school ;)

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  26. love the recipe.. sounds really yumm!

    and about FB or Orkut - I'd say - Dil pe mat le yaar!

    I completely agree with your observations and spend limited time on fb..People love to market their lives and "be nice" to other people.. for me - I keep in touch with the same people on email, over phone and on FB or orkut. If I don't want to keep in touch with someone - I simply reject their invitation..

    enough said

    If you still have some mint left over - here's my mother-in-law's superb recipe for Pani Puri ka pani.. do give it a try:
    http://love-at-first-bite-recipes.blogspot.com/2009/11/pani-puri-or-gol-gappe.html

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