Anjali's Food Kaleidoscope

1. Tomato rice

I  just  love  tomatoes. They have the goodness of  iron and calcium and what lovely colour they give to whatever you put them into. There are many ways of making tomato rice but I particularly love this one because it has a delicate flavour of coconut. I love coconut too…be it coconut water, coconut vinegar, coconut oil, or just plain grated coconut….I just love it .

I have a whole lot of coconut based recipes in my repertoire and  a big hello to all those who love coconut…please join me up in your gang.

The recipe goes this way…

Ingredients

1.   Now that we were talking coconut  lets put that on the top of the list….1 and a half cup grated coconut

2.    Tomatoes ….we are going to use a whole lot of them…so grate four large  tomatoes and discard the peel , the outcome should be two cups of thick tomato puree . Take a look how they look once they are grated.

3.    1 cup rice …preferably long grain

4.    3 tablespoons refined oil

5.    Cinnamon  stick , cloves, black cardamom and cumin a little of all these goodies.

6.     Two green chillies….depends on how hot they are….increase or decrease as I don’t want to be blamed if your rice turns out too spicy…so adjust accordingly

7.     1 tablespoon heapful ginger garlic paste….I use a lot of this in my cooking and add it wherever its possible . W hy?  Check out the benefits and you all would do the same.

8.     ¼ teaspoon turmeric powder

9.     Salt to taste.

Method

1.   Wash and soak the rice at least half an hour before you start with this recipe. Or else do what I did this time…I soaked for about 15 minutes in warm water.

2.   Put one cup of warm water and the grated coconut in a blender and just blend a little. Strain the coconut milk and repeat the process with half a cup of water .I know it’s a tedious process so I will give you a shortcut  there…take 200 ml of coconut milk which comes in these handy tetra packs …a blessed relief to coconut lovers and add 100ml of water to it.

3.   Just blend the milk and tomato together and keep it aside while we get on with the other things.

4.   Take oil in a pan and warm it on medium flame and add the spices and stir for a minute to let them exhude their fragrance into the oil.

5.   Add the ginger garlic paste and fry a little.

6.   Add the drained rice and stir for about  5 minutes.

7.   Add the puree mixture along with turmeric , salt and the slit green  chillies.

8.   Cover and reduce the flame to low and cook till done.