Poondu satham / Garlic rice

This is a simple recipe but a very helpful postnatal diet. I had made this several times and found this as  the easiest, yet a tasty way to include garlic in my postnatal diet.  I found this recipe  in a supplement of a tamil magazine.

Ingredients:
Cooked rice – 2 cups
Small onion- 1/2 cup
Garlic pods – 1 cup
Ginger- 1/4 inch piece
Roasted and ground black pepper- 1/2  tsp
Raosted and ground cumin seeds- 1 tsp
Method:

An important thing in  making any mixed rice variety is that the rice has to be cooked well but  must be separate grains. Normally this can be achieved by  roasting the raw rice in little ghee before cooking or adding a little sesame oil while it is cooking. Once the rice is cooked, cool it well  in a wide pan/ plate.

Cut the onions, garlic and ginger into fine pieces. Heat oil or ghee in a wide skillet, add mustard seeds, cumin seeds , dried  chillies (3-4 numbers)  and curry leaves. Add the onion, garlic and ginger pieces and  fry them on low heat.Add pepper powder and cumin powder. Add salt to taste and mix the rice , turning off the heat.

Egg Fried Rice

Ingredients:

Basmati rice 500gms

Eggs 3

Onions 1

Green chillies 2

Ginger 1"piece

Cinnamon 1

Clove 2

Bay leaf 1

Pepper powder 1 tbsp

Salt as per taste

Oil 4 tbsp

Method:

1. Beat egg and add pepper.Make a big omelet and cut it into small pieces.
2. Heat oil,add all the masala.Saute till they are fried.
3. Add onions,ginger and green chillies.Saute till they are pink in colour.
4. Now add rice to the above mixture and mix thoroughly.

COCONUT RICE RECIPE

This is a South Indian recipe for coconut rice. Fried coconut and cashewnuts are added to boiled rice and garnished with ghee and coriander leaves.

Ingredients:

400 gms biryani rice
120 gms coconut
40 ml ghee
25 gms black gram dhal
25 gms broken pieces of nuts
6 gms dry chillies
2 gms curry leaves
2.5 gms asafoetida powder
20 gms (minced) coriander leaves
Salt to taste

How to make coconut rice:

• Boil rice and keep aside.
• Fry coconut evenly to a golden colour on a slow fire.
• Heat 3 dessertspoon of ghee. Fry the cashewnuts and remove.
• Fry the broken pieces of dry chillies, black gram dhal, and curry leaves well.
• Mix rice, coconut, nuts, 1 teaspoon of ghee and salt.
• Serve hot garnished with coriander leaves.

BRINJAL RICE RECIPE

This is a spicy rice recipe made by tempering the brinjals or eggplants with mustard seeds and curry leaves and then mixing with boiled rice. It is very tasty as well as complete meal in itself.

Ingredients:

3 cups plain rice
1 1/2 tsp mustard seeds
a few curry leaves
3 tsp. vegetable oil
3 cups eggplant (brinjals)
3 tsp. finely sliced green chillies
Salt to taste
1 tsp turmeric powder
3 tsp lemon juice

How to make brinjal rice:

• Boil rice and keep aside.
• In a large pan fry the mustard seeds, curry leaves, add the eggplant (brinjal) and green chillies. Stir on low flame, cover and cook for 10 minutes.
• Add salt and turmeric powder cook for another 5 minutes. Remove from fire and add lemon juice stir well and mix with the rice. Stir gently allowing each grain to coat.