Quick Tomato Rice Recipe
This morning my daughter had to leave home at 5.45 a.m. for her Math tuition (she is in the eleventh grade) and I hadn't planned anything for her lunch. She would attend her Math tuition class and then go to school directly, so both breakfast and lunch will have to be packed and given. Three days a week, when she attended tuition, breakfast would always be cheese or vegetable sandwiches . So that was not a problem.
As I was breaking my head about what to give her for lunch, I thought of this quick tomato rice recipe and decided on it as all the ingredients were readily available in the kitchen. I cooked half a cup white rice in the pressure cooker and as the rice cooked, got the other things ready.
Cook Time
Prep time: 15 min
Cook time: 30 min
Ready in: 45 min
Yields: Serves 2 people roughly 150 g rice
Ingredients
- 1 Onion big, finely chopped
- 2 big tomatoes, finely chopped
- 2 cloves Garlic, slit lengthwise
- 1/4 tsp. Mustard
- a few Mint leaves (optional), chopped fine
- a few Cilantro, chopped fine
- a few Curry leaves
- 1/4 tsp. Turmeric powder
- 1/4 tsp. Chilli powder
- 1/2 tsp. Sakthi biryani masala or any masala(spice powder)
- 1/4 tsp. Asafoetida
- 1/2 to 1 tsp. Salt or as per taste
- 2 tsp Ghee (clarified butter)and/or oil
- 1 number Bay leaf (optional)
- Cook 1 cup rice in 2 cups water for 2 whistles in the pressure cooker. Don't open the cooker for a good 15 minutes or until all the pressure is gone. As you wait for the cooker to be opened, you can complete the onion-tomato cooking.
- I used 1 tsp. ghee (clarified butter) and 1 tsp. oil in this recipe because I was preparing it for my daughter and I think youngsters can afford to eat fatty substances within a certain limit. If you don't want to use ghee, you can use any vegetable oil.
- Add mustard and asafoetida to hot oil in a pan. When mustard splutters, add garlic pieces (better if you cut it into pieces lengthwise) and fry for a minute before adding chopped onion.
- When the onion turns pink and transparent, chopped tomatoes may be added. At this point, add turmeric, chilli, salt and garam masala powders.
- If the mixture looks very dry, add a little more oil till all the ingredients are well mixed and ready to be added to the rice. Mix rice and the onion-tomato and you have tasty onion-tomato rice ready.
- I like this recipe because it is so simple and quick to prepare and something that my daughter (all youngsters generally love) loves to eat.
- I don't give my daughter any side-dish for this to school because she likes it that way, but if she is at home then she eats this rice with onion raita , a salad with chopped onion and yoghurt. This is a very cool recipe that goes well with any spicy dish. It is good for digestion. You can also eat the onion-tomato rice with potato wedges, wafers or chips.
- This recipe does not actually require 45 minutes because as the rice cooks, you can start cutting onion and tomato and keep the shallow-fried vegetables ready by the time you open the cooker. Waiting time (waiting for the pressure in the cooker to be released completely) is only more. So I could say that this dish can be prepared in 30 minutes flat.
Method
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