The Steaming Pot - Easy vegetarian recipes from India

Pineapple sweet corn rice doesn’t just taste delicious, it’s also a great way to finish off leftovers – boiled rice from last night’s dinner, sweet corn you did not add to that stir fry, the big chunk of pineapple sitting in your fridge – use them all in this recipe.

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A variety of vegetables go into this Chinese-style recipe that’s great on the side with chapatis or fried rice. Chili garlic mixed vegetables is cooked on high heat  (using the Chao technique, or so Wikipedia tells me), which retains the texture and color of the vegetables. The dish gets its zing – and its name – from the pre-made chili garlic sauce that’s added to it.

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Till about a decade back, a mention of sattu in conversation with a non-Bihari audience would be greeted with puzzled stares. Things have changed today. The world around is more health-conscious, and sattu has gained currency for its great nutritional benefits. Rich in minerals, proteins and fibre, low of glycemic index – sattu is said to be the most economical antidote to diabetes.

The better-known style of consuming this miracle food is probably in the form of a cooling sattu drink, but my favorite way is as sattu paratha – flatbread stuffed with a spiced sattu filling.

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Seeing that a nutty ingredient does a great job of taming the bitter notes of other ingredients (think curry leaf peanut chutney or sesame fenugreek chutney), I dared to make a rice dish seeped in curry leaf, with a load of cashews for good effect. And I loved the result.

Here’s my curry leaf pulao recipe – for those who share taste buds similar to mine! How many of you?

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Sooji or semolina, as Wikipedia tells us, is

the coarse, purified wheat middlings of durum wheat used in making pasta, breakfast cereals, puddings, and couscous.

That description covers wide ground, taking in its span popular Indian dishes like  halwa and upma – versions of pudding/breakfast cereal made of semolina.

Cooking sooji as a cheela (pancake) is a relatively unusual way of using the flour, but once you try it, you’ll definitely want to do frequent repeats.

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A vitamin-filled start to the day with carrot poha: flattened rice cooked crisp with grated carrot and pepper.

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One-pot meal lovers, this one’s for you. Vegetable pulao (or pilaf, as it is popularly spelled in some parts of the world) is a rice dish cooked with vegetables and spices, typically served with yogurt or raita for a complete meal.

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