Egg Pulao

Ingredients:

Usually I use garam masala or pulao masala but I ran out of both so I made do with whatever I had. I didnt follow any specific recipe but just went on a whim. It turned out super good! This recipe is a keeper.

21/2 cups of basmati rice soaked in water for about 30 mins
1 egg
5 eggs boiled and cubed
1 Large onion chopped into thin long slices
1 cup of diced carrots, beans, and green peas
1 tsp ginger garlic paste
1/8th cup tomato paste
2 tbsp cumin powder
2 tbsp coriander powder
2 bay leaves
1 inch piece of cinnamon
5 cloves
2 tbsp Chili powder or as per taste
Salt to taste

Method:
1. Cook rice in rice cooker with cloves,salt for taste and 2/1/2 cups of water. Cooking cloves with rice gives a nice aroma.
2. Heat oil in a pan, saute bay leaves and cinnamon.
3. Add onion and saute is until it becomes translucent.
4. Add ginger garlic paste and remaining spices, saute again for a few mins
5. Break the egg directly into the pan and stir it well so that the egg disintegrates and starts cooking.
6. Add tomato puree and the vegetables, sprinkle some salt. Add water if desired for the vegetables to cook. Make sure you dont make it too runny.. otherwise the pulao will turn out soggy.
7. Once the vegetables are cooked through add the boiled eggs and stir, turn off the heat and transfer the cooked rice form the rice cooker into the vegetable pan and give it a quick mix. Avoid over mixing otherwise the rice will break and you will end-up with a mushy pulao

Garnish with chopped cilantro and serve.

Rava Dosa

Ingredients:

1/2 cup rava
1/2 cup rice flour
1/8 cup maida
1 tsp cumin
1 green chili finely chopped
4 tbsp finely chopped onion
Salt to taste


Method:

Mix all the ingredients together and make a runny batter(buttermilk consistency). Set aside for 10mins before making dosas.

Batter consistency and tava temperature play an important part in the final outcome. For Rava dosas batter should be runny like buttermilk and tava temperature should be high, so leave the gas on a setting close to high.(somewhere between high and medium-high)

Wait until the tava gets hot, spread a few drops of oil on it and rub it all around the tava using the cut top end of a onion that you usually would discard. Take a ladle of batter and spread it on the tava in a circular motion. If you see it accumulating on one side then tilt tava slightly in the other direction so that the excess batter spreads on other side of the tava. Wait until you start seeing a change in the texture, you will also see the corner of the dosa turning golden brown, this means its time to flip it over and cook the other side.

I served it with potato sabzi and coconut chutney, like masala dosa :)

Egg Puffs

I remember having puffs in India from street side hawkers, my brother introduced it to me on one of our school holidays when we had nothing else to do but read story books and enjoy the sinful but yummy stuff that these hawkers had to offer. We would combine our pocket money and get egg puffs or samosas or chaat and enjoy it as a afternoon snack.

Its very easy to make, but requires a little planning because of the 40min thawing time that the store bought puff dough takes. I used pepperidge farm's puff pastry sheets and can vouch for it, homemade puffs is now a breeze. I found it in Vons but any other grocery chains close to you would carry them I suppose.

Ingredients:
4 Boiled and cubed eggs
1/2 onion cut into thin long slices
2 tsp tomato sauce
2 tsp cumin powder
1 tsp turmeric (optional)
2 tbsp garam masala powder
Salt and more chili powder as per taste

Method:
Heat oil in a saucepan and saute the onions, followed by rest of the spices. Add eggs and salt. Turn of the heat and let it rest for a bit.

Take the pastry sheets thawed at room temperature for 40 mins, cut 1 sheet into 4 equal squares, using a pin roller flatten each of them a bit to chapati thickness. Then put the egg stuffing in the center of each square and fold them to cover all the stuffing. Bake in oven at 375 for about 40 mins or until they turn golden brown.