TOMATO RICE

For as long as I can remember, I have always liked the tomato rice bath at the Darshini’s dotting my city and I have tried making it many a times at home too. But something was always off. Also, I was looking for a no onion, no garlic tomato rice recipe. Found one from Namma Adige channel, which by the way has some truly quick and easy recipes and I’ve had a pretty good success rate with most of them. This particular tomato rice uses the least ingredients most of which are available at home almost all times. I have been making this week after week and it has turned out perfect every time – without the raw smell of mint or tomatoes OR the strong smell of garlic and onion or ginger. These are the steps: 1. Heat oil. Add a bay leaf, little cumin/jeera seeds and about 3 to 4 finely chopped tomatoes. Fry till soft for few minutes. Add some cooked peas (this is optional but I looove peas so much so I’m quite liberal with the frozen peas) 2. Grind: little grated coconut, coriander leaves, pudina/mint leaves, cloves, elachi/cardamom, cinnamon (I skipped cinnamon completely as I don’t like the smell) grind to fine paste with water. Go easy on these ingredients. We don’t want too much masala paste. 3. To the tomatoes and peas, add red chilli powder, dhania powder, turmeric, ground masala paste and fry till the masala is well cooked. Do not over fry and make it dry. 4. Add cooked rice and salt to taste and there you go! Serve with Raitha or chips. I am including the recipe link here. The difference between my style versus the video is skipping the cinnamon, adding cooked rice instead of cooking the rice along with the paste, sometimes I don’t add garam masala because it tastes awesome with just the chilli powder and dhania powder!!. Step two is where you need to be careful. Tone down the ingredients if you don’t want to make too much. I used only quarter of the things mentioned. Too much masala and it gets tough to mix the rice in. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NiZkyMqfziQ Give this a try. It is super quick, healthy and easy and all in less than 10 minutes!! Overall rating: 4.5 Ratings for reviews: 1 – No! No! No! 2- Just about average. 3 –Good. Can give it a try. 4- Great!! 5 – Yes! Yes! Yes! And I’ll tell all about it.