The Steaming Pot - Easy vegetarian recipes from India

Lightly fried brown rice with basil walnut pesto made fresh at home. A filling and nutritious one-pot meal.

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The southern states of India excel in the art of making various types of podi: literally ‘powder’, the word is used to describe ground dry spice blends. One really smart use of podi is as a ready-to-eat mix for plain boiled rice. Within seconds, a swirl of podi transforms plain boiled rice  into a fancy one-pot meal. The traditional podis I’m familiar with use a legume such as toor dal or chana dal as the base; this very simple 3-ingredient podi uses peanuts instead.  On days when there’s no time to cook a set meal of rice-dal-curry, this podi-based peanut sesame rice is a lifesaver.

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A nutritious one-pot meal in which fenugreek leaves, peanuts and ghee add their charm to rice. Methi moongphali chawal is just the answer for you if you *want* to consume fenugreek for its health-giving properties but find its – shall we say, potent – taste unpalatable.

This recipe is really quick to put together if you have the boiled ingredients and the spice base – methi chutney – ready beforehand. Do as I do – make a big batch of methi chutney, use it as side dish on Day 1 and in fenugreek peanut rice on Day 2. Ek panth do kaaj.

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This colorful bell pepper rice is really quick to put together, especially if you have plain boiled rice made ahead.

I have broadly followed Divine Taste’s stir fried brown rice recipe for it – I used no onion or garlic and loved the touch of almonds.

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A summertime favorite inspired by a recipe I saw on the TV show Turban Tadka. Mango phirni gives a seasonal twist to the conventional rice phirni. Serve it in silver bowls for a classic feel, or layer it in glasses western-style with nuts and mango pulp.

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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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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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