I was feeling a bit under the weather and tired last weekend, and felt like eating some Indian food. We do order some a few times a year, but to be honest, it does get a bit expensive and we end up having so much food that we stretch it over 3-4 meals and by the end, I am so sick of it, I can’t stand it! haha Plus, whenever we order, it always takes over an hour to get here…
So I decided that I should make some myself, using organic ingredients I had, and it would be much healthier since I used brown basmati rice instead of white, and I can control exactly what else would go in it (a lot of take-outs like Indian and Chinese foods use MSG on top of other not-so-good ingredients). The best part of this was that I was all done and eating before we would’ve had our food if I had ordered delivery!
I didn’t have any Garam Masala spice, so I went online to look at what exactly is in there, and noticed that my “Spice cake” mix was exactly the same, except it had allspice extra, but I thought Oh well! let’s give it a try. And it worked. The only spice I didn’t have was cardamom, which I’d suggest adding in there, although it was delicious without. You should never stop yourself from trying a recipe, even if you don’t have all of the ingredients. Sometimes it turns out awesome. And sometimes, not-so-awesome. But you know what? it’s only one meal, and it’s almost impossible to mess up a meal badly enough that you can’t eat it (unless you drop the entire jar of salt in there, or you burn the crap out of the dish. haha).
This is a vegan dish, but if you’d like to add a couple of sausages (organic grass-fed meat), chopped in tiny pieces, it tastes really yummy too.
Yum yum!
Enjoy!!!
ECP xo
No need for take-out! 30 min Indian Pulao Rice | Vegan, Gluten-Free
No need for take-out with this healthy recipe for a 30 min Indian pulao rice dish. can be made vegan or with added shrimps or meat if desired.
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cup brown basmati rice
- 1/2 organic red pepper chopped
- 1 onion (large) minced
- 2 garlic cloves minced
- 1 ginger peeled and minced
- 2 carrots (large) washed, cut in small cubes or slices
- 8 oz organic mushrooms washed, sliced
- 1 organic tomato washed and cut in small cubes
- 1 cup organic baby spinach washed
- 398 ml chickpeas 1 regular size can
- 1/3 cup peas frozen
- 1 tsp turmeric ground
- 1 tsp cumin ground
- 1 tsp coriander ground
- 1/8 tsp cayenne ground
- 5 whole cardamom seeds
- 1/2 tsp garam masala
- 1/2 tsp curry powder
- 3 cups filtered water
- extra-virgin extra-virgin for cooking
- 1 tsp unrefined sea salt
- 1/4 tsp ground pepper
Instructions
- Cut the onion and carrots. Warm a large pan over medium heat. While that is heating up, continue cutting the rest of the vegetables (pepper, mushrooms, garlic).
- Once the pan is hot, pour a generous amount of olive oil and put the vegetables in (except the tomato, garlic, spinach and chickpeas), stirring often, until nicely roasted (probably 7-8 minutes).
- Add all the spices (except salt) and stir well for 15-20 seconds, to make sure the spices develop their flavours. Then add the tomato and garlic for a few minutes and then add the rice, water, and chickpeas, stir, cover and reduce temperature a bit, just under medium.
- Let it cook, covered, for about 30 minutes, stirring every 10 minutes or so. If the water evaporates too quickly, add a bit more water so that it doesn't burn at the bottom. A few minutes before the end, throw in the spinach. Add the salt and pepper before serving.
Note: I do not believe anyone should worry about counting calories, but here is the nutritional information for one serving
Calories: 495kcal | Fat: 5g | Sodium: 639mg | Potassium: 1062mg | Carbohydrates: 96g | Fiber: 14g | Sugar: 11g | Protein: 18g | Vitamin A: 6760% | Vitamin C: 37.1% | Calcium: 127% | Iron: 5.8%
I’m making this for dinner tonight!
Wonderful! I hope you liked it 🙂 Let me know how it went!
We all enjoyed it. My husband took the leftovers to work yesterday and got a lot of positive comments.
Yay! So glad to hear it was a success! Thanks for sharing!
Made it tonight, delicious!
This is completely irrelevant to the recipe but the comments were coincidentally written when I was in labor -first- and right after delivering my baby -second- and I took it as a sign. I know, weirdo.
My baby will soon be 1 year old! (and he looooves Indian food, so he might even get a taste of this 🙂
Superbe blog, je viens de lire un peu sur toi et on dirait qu’on a des vies parallèles! (cuisine bio, dessin, décoration intérieure, parle plusieurs langues, traductrice… dis-donc!)
hey! glad you liked it! Merci, je suis en bonne compagnie alors! 😉