The rice: lightly fry some cinnamon stick, green cardamom pods, cumin seeds, and cloves in olive oil. Add rinsed rice and stir it fast so it doesn’t stick. Add the water, some tumeric and salt. Mix it all up and put the lid on. Turn to high or medium high, bring to a boil, reduce to low, check it in 10 minutes to see if it’s done.
Once done the cardamom pods, cinnamon stick and cloves should have floated to the top. Fish those out and discard them.
The veg: Julienne some carrots, dice some onions, pull out some frozen peas, grab some shelled sunflower seeds. Pull out your wok and add some oil. On high heat add the carrots, onions and some salt. Stir fry until the onions start to turn translucent. Add maybe half a cup of water the peas and put a lid on it. Once the water has mostly evaporated add some garam masala and the sunflower seeds. Stir fry until done.
Mix the two together.
Accidentally vegan. Cost per person: $1.12
Sounds awesome. It’s hard for me to get cardamom pods & garam masala around here, but maybe at Trader Joe’s or something. Love the cinnamom stick usage also, as it’s so underrated. I also find that it typically lasts maybe 2-3 cookings for me, and afterwards can still be left to dry and enjoyed as a sort of jerky / cigarette substitute.
Would love to see how this tastes with SCO subbed for rice.
I make my own garam masala. I even have a jar with all the whole seeds and stuff ready so in case I run out I can toast it up, let it cool and grind it up.
I always end up buying way more cardamom than I can reasonably use because I get it at the international market and they don’t do two ounce jars that are half full like McCormick. I could send you some.
I make my own garam masala
Whatś in yours? I’ve seen quite a few different recipes, so just curious about yours
Garam masala
2 tbsp coriander seeds (Indian, not American)
1 tsp cumin seeds
1/2 tsp whole cloves
1/2 tsp green cardamom seeds
2 bay leaves, not Mexican
1 arbol chili pod (optional)
2 inch cinnamon stick
1 tsp ground or freshly shaved nutmeg- Toast everything but the nutmeg in a pan for 5 minutes
- Let cool completely
- Grind in a spice grinder until it’s a fine powder. You may need to run it through a mesh strainer and regrind the leftovers.
One of my biggest regrets about moving West is no international groceries within reach, consarnit. Btw, what do you use to grind seeds & stuff, coffee grinder or mortar & pestle…?
Thanks for the offer. I’ll try to see what Exchanger Joseph’s & Heinan’s have to offer and possibly take you up on that. I’m down to just ghee and a bag of panch puran (seed mix) for Indian dishes, but the latter is pretty strong and typically only used in some dishes, far as I know. Real garam masala would be something I’ve never actually cooked with before, outside of the overpriced, limp, McCormick-style powder.
It’s a standard coffee/spice grinder. Good for spices, making powdered sugar or lentil flour.
If you can, find the soft thick cinnamon bark, not the thin hard and dried sticks. Much better flavour.
Good point. The ones I have are from Badia (Latino brand). They’re thick and hard, but I’m not sure which of the two type of cinnamon they are. Definitely worth a research.
Should look like this:
Not this
Nah, I checked, and it turns out I just have the common Chinese variety. (“cassia” I think it was)
You have that delicate Ceylon cinnamon type …?
You should post about it, dude!!
I’ve saved this bc I’m intrigued.
Love it. I do a very similar dish, but I’ll add a teaspoon of tomato paste in the rice water and I crush the cardamon pods and blow the papery shell away so the cardamon stays in. I get more flavour that way.
Also no garlic?
If it were up to me I would have added garlic but there are situations where I know my wife is going to be sensitive to garlic so I leave it out or greatly reduce it for her.
When you cook the rice, you said that the cinnamon stick, cardamom & cloves float to the top. Does that mean that you cook the rice with more water than it needs, then drain off the excess?
Nope. Proper amount of water. As the water boils they will float above the rice and as the water vanishes they settle down on the top of the rice.
You can throw some pork lard in there to up the calories a bit.
That’s very far from a traditional Indian ingredient. Better to save that stuff for potatoes.
