Bagara Rice

Serves: 5. Preparation time: 1 hour for everything

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons of oil

Spices:
1/2 teaspoon of Shahjeera (Persian Cumin)
1 teaspoon Jheera (Cumin)
3 Cloves
4 inch stick of Cinnamon
1 Black cardamom
2 Green Cardamoms
1 Star Anise
3 Bay leaves
2 stems of Curry leaves
5 Cashew nuts
3 whole dry red chillies
1/2 teaspoon Garam masala
1 pinch ground nutmeg
A few strands of Saffron soaked in warm water
1 Tomato (pureed)

Salt to taste (keep in mind, we need salt for seasoning the vegetables as well as the rice)

3.5 cups of white Basmati rice (soak it)

Vegetables:
1 big onion cut into thin long slivers
1 Clove Garlic pounded/minced
1/2 inch Ginger grated
1 medium onion cut into thin long slivers (used for garnishing)
4 Green chillies (mild ones) chopped
2 small potatoes diced
1 Carrot diced
Half a head of a small cauliflower broken into florets
Half a head of a small broccoli broken into florets
1 cup of fresh Green peas
1 small capsicum
1 small bunch of Pudina leaves chopped
1 small bunch of Cilantro chopped

Method:
Heat the oil in a pan. Add Shahjeera, Jheera. When they splutter, add cloves, cinnamon, cardamom, Star Anise, bay leaves, curry leaves, cashewnuts, dry red chillies and cook until cashew turns light brown.
Add the vegetables: Start with Onion, let it brown a bit, add in the ginger+garlic, add the Garam masala & ground nutmeg, let it cook for a few seconds and add the other vegetables too, including the cilantro & mint. (Set aside a handfulof mint for garnishing.)
Add salt and continue cooking, we want the vegetables to be half done.
Meanwhile, set water to boil on another stove/electric kettle (this water should be enough to cook the basmati rice, delete half a cup of water as the vegetables have moisture too that the rice will absorb. Add the pureed tomato into this water so it get cooked).

When the vegetables are half done, add the boiling tomato water into them, add the soaked rice, the saffron water, mix it and let it cook until done.
Squeeze some lemon (to taste) & lightly sprinkle cardamom powder over it. Garnish with fried onion & pudina spread all over the surface of the rice. Onion gets that lovely crunchy golden fried hue if fried in an iron pan (or aluminium, I didn't see such good results with non-stick teflon pans).  Serve with raita.



Comments:
I used quality spices from Zanzibar, the cardamom, cloves, cinnamon are very aromatic, I was amazed to see the HUGE dried flower bud on top of each clove. This recipe might need more cardamoms/cloves depending on the quality of the spice. The vegetables can be adjusted, I love green peas so I added a whole cup, add any other vegetable you like! One can even add garlic in this dish. I love how the flavour of these whole spices permeates through the rice.

 

Trivia:
I think I enjoy writing recipes mostly because of the chance I get to write up the trivia section :-D
Food is incomplete for me without documenting or discussing the story behind it, so please bear with me!
The Bagara rice recipe is courtesy my good friend Bhavani Goud. I fell in love with it when I ate it at her place, her rice comes out layered, mine turned out more like a pulao. This is a Telangana recipe. I made minor modifications to her recipe (adding capsicum & so many green peas was my idea), I encourage you to do the same, after all, it is all about what feels yummy to us!
The dominant flavour in this dish comes from pudina. Kaavya always teases me that I add chopped cilantro into everything that I cook. Well Kaavya, pudina is my current craze, so I have been adding fresh chopped pudina and cilantro into everything I cook these days :)In fact, I made Totakura Kadalu pulusu this afternoon with pudina added into the tempering :D (Don't laugh guys, it tasted divine!)

Update:
I made Bagara rice once again, this time I used soaked brown rice and I added baby corn, french beans & soaked chickpeas, it was just as delicious & heavenly!

2019:
I still love making this, I have now standardised it in OPOS which has made it an easy-peasy breeze to cook. 

మామిడి కాయ పులిహోర/Mamidi kaya pulihora/Raw mango rice

Serve 2 persons

Ingredients:

Raw mango------1 or 11/2 as per the sourness of mango

Rice -- 1 cup (Rice cooker measure)

Salt to taste

Turmeric------1tsp

Curry leaves-----few

Asafoetida------1tsp

Aavalu/mustard seeds----1tbs

Green chillies-----------5 to 6

Seasoning:

Oil------------2 tbs

Senaga pappu/bengal gram dal--1 tbs

Minapappu/ black gram dal------1/2 tbs

Aavalu/ mustard seeds----------1 tsp

Peanuts/ Ground nuts/verusenaga pappu------2 tbs

Method:

1. Cook rice and add turmeric and spread it in a bowl. Let it cool.
2. Grind chilly and 1tbs of mustard seeds to a paste.
3. Heat oil in a pan and add Mustard seeds, when it splutters add dals and nuts and fry them. Let it cool.
4. Grind mango and make a paste.
5. Mix mango paste to the rice and then add mustard chilly paste.
6 .Finally add seasoning and mix well and eat.

Variations: You can grate mango instead of grinding.

మెంతి ఆకు-టమాట అన్నం: Menti Aaku Tamata annam- Fenugreek greens & Tomato rice

Serves: Four as a snack. Preparation time: 1 hour including assembling ingredients, washing, chopping, cooking.

Ingredients:
1 bunch Fenugreek greens 

2 medium sized Ripe Tomatoes

1.5'' Ginger piece.

1.5 cloves Garlic

1 Tsp Cumin seeds

1 Tsp Turmeric

1 medium sized Onion

4 Green chillies or to taste

1 Tbsp Salt or to taste

0.5 Tsp Sugar

2 Tbsps Oil

2 Rice cooker cups of Rice

3 stalks of Cilantro

Optional: Green peas

Method:
1. Wash the rice and boil it. Boil it with slightly less water (2 Tbsps less than normal) so that it is well cooked but grainy in texture. Set aside and leave to cool. 
2. Meanwhile, pluck the leaves from the stalks of Methi greens. Discard the stalks. We can use any tender stalks if they are not fibrous. Wash the Methi & Cilantro thoroughly in clean running water. Immerse them in salt water for ten minutes if you wish. Place in a colander to let the water drain out. 
3. With a mortar & pestle, pound the ginger and set aside. Pound the garlic and set aside. Pound the green chillies or chop them very fine and set aside. 
4. Finely chop the Onion and set aside. 
5. Chop tomatoes into chunks and set aside. 
6. Finely chop the Methi greens and set aside. Also chop the Cilantro. 

7. In a wok, heat the oil. Add Cumin seeds. When they splutter, add the turmeric, Garlic paste, Ginger paste, Green chilli paste and Onions. Let it cook until onion browns. You can add the salt at this stage since salt draws out moisture from the onions & makes them crisp. However, traditional cooks like to add salt right at the end. 
8. Mix in the chopped Methi greens and tomato chunks.  Add red chilli powder if you like the taste (optional). 
9. Cover and cook for six to seven minutes by clock. The tomatoes soften and make the mixture go soupy. 

10. Mix in the sugar (and the salt if you didn't add it earlier) and rice. Let it cook for a minute. The rice soaks up the soupy juices and turns out dry. 
11. Garnish with chopped Cilantro. 


Serve with a Perugu pacchadi or Raita. 

Variations:
1. Adjust the garlic, ginger, green chillies according to taste. 
2. Traditional cooks say that souring agents like tomato/tamarind etc halt the cooking process. If you feel touchy about that issue, let the Methi greens cook for sometime before adding the tomato chunks. I add them together since I like to expose greens to the minimum cooking time, my greens just get cooked along with the tomato instead of initially being cooked & then cooked again while the tomato cooks. 
3. I cook the Methi greens for only 6 or 7 minutes since I make a small quantity (it cooks quickly). Also, it is advisable to cook greens for no longer than 8 minutes to preserve most of the vitamins and phytochemicals. However, traditional cooks may complain that the greens are still raw, you can cook it for longer if you wish!
 4. This same recipe can be made with Pudina (Mint) greens instead of Methi greens & Tomato. Also, a mix of greens can be used (Spinach, Mint, Fenugreek, Cilantro). However, remember not to club Tomatoes with Spinach. 
5. Try tossing in a handful of green peas for taste, nutrition and visual appeal!

Trivia:
I have fond memories of this dish, mom made it once when my sister & I were in an 'I-am-not-hungry' phase, this made our mouths water and our stomachs rumble!! One of my all time favourites. Very simple to make, great taste along with the goodness of green leafy vegetable...
Aahaahaahaa, try this out if you want to know what "Yummy" means!

పులిహొర /Pulihora/ Tamarind Rice

(Serves four)
Preparation time : Approx 1 hour

Ingredients:

2 cups Rice
1 tbsp oil
1 big lemon sized tamarind
1/4 tsp turmeric
10 curry leaves (Karivepaku)
4 green chillies
2 tsp salt
pinch of methi(fenugreek) podwer (Optional)

For Popu:
8 Dry red chillies (Endu mirapakayalu)
2 green chillies
1 tsp mustard seeds (aavalu)
2 tbsp urad dal (minapappu)
2 1/2 tbs chana dal (senagapappu)
4 tbsp peanuts (veru senagapappu)
1/2 tsp hing powder
2 tbsp oil
6 curry leaves


Preparation:

Cook rice separately (make sure the rice doesn’t get sticky) and once it is cooked spread it out in a wide bowl/dish and add 1 tbsp oil, turmeric and curry leaves. Keep it aside and let it cool.

Soak the tamarind for around half an hour in water and extract the juice free of all the pulp and seeds

Heat oil in a pan, add few curry leaves, 2 green chillies a pinch of hing, a pinch of turmeric, 2 tsp salt and put it to boil until the tamarind becomes a thick consistent paste and all the water evaporates

Mix the rice with the tamarind paste . Keep aside.

Heat oil in a pan and add all the popu ingredients. When they splutter, turn off the heat and add popu to the rice.

చిత్రాన్నం / నిమ్మకాయ పులిహోర- Chitraannam /Nimmakaaya Pulihora- Lemon rice

Serves: Three. Preparation time: 45 minutes including preparing all the vegetables, assembling the required quantities of ingredients (rice cooks simultaneously on another flame), cooking and mixing together.

Ingredients:

Boil 2 cups of rice and let it cool. Use less water than regular so that the rice grains are not too moist, they should be grainy but well cooked (Manju pinni advises to sprinkle a few drops of oil so that the grains don't stick together as they cool.).

2 large lemons

Salt to taste

½ tsp sugar

For tempering:

1.5 tsp Mustard seeds

1tsp turmeric

2 tbsp oil

2 tbsp Senaga pappu (Chana daal)

2 tbsp Minnappappu

5 Dry Red Chillies (or to taste)

0.5 tsp Asafoetida

Few Curry leaves

0.5 tsp Sesame seeds (Til/Nuvvulu)

2 tbsp Peanuts (or to taste)

Broken Cashwenuts

Fine chopped Green chillies to taste

(Peanuts and cashewnuts are pre-roasted.)

The following are needed just to add various colours, so a small fistful of each would do:

Green peas- halved

Grated/fine chopped carrot

Fine chopped capsicum

Fine chopped red bell pepper, yellow bell pepper.

Grated Green mango

Grated coconut
Grated ginger

(Vegetables mentioned above are only for embellishing the dish with colour & flavour, not for dominating it with an altered taste, so please be careful about the quantities!)

Method:

Place the salt and sugar in a bowl. Squeeze out the juice from the lemons into this bowl (Lemon juice turns bitter if left exposed- hence, the addition of salt-sugar). Set aside.

Heat oil in pan. Add minnappappu, dry red chillies, senaga pappu. When minnappappu is slightly browned, add mustard seeds. When they crackle, add turmeric, asafoetida, sesame seeds, peanuts, cashewnuts, green chillies, curry leaves and the fine chopped colourful vegetables.

Cook for a minute or two, turn off the heat (Carrots/Capsicums/Mango/Coconut are only partially cooked so that they don't lose their colour and vitamins). 

Add the cooked rice into this pan and mix well, pour in the lemon juice that was set aside earlier. Mix well.

Precautions/Variations:
I used pre-roasted peanuts & cashewnuts, hence I added them just before adding vegetables. However, if using raw nuts, they should be added along with the minappappu+red chillies+senagapappu so that they have time to brown.

More lemons may be needed, I used very large juicy ones.

Perhaps I wasn't perfect with the amounts of ingredients, I revised them after my dish turned out bland, so those of you who like it spicy, be generous with the spices ;-)

Culture:
Chitraannam: Chitra+Annam: means "Coloured rice" in Samskrtam/Telugu. It is named thus owing to the many colours present in this dish.
If we didn't add  the many colourful bits of vegetables, it can also be called Nimmakaya pulihora.


Trivia:

This is my mom's trademark dish, she always makes this during any community lunch, for poojas, vanabhojanams, guests at home, et al. And try as I might, I can never replicate her taste :-O