Receta Recipe | Quick Fried Rice with Capsicum and Almonds – It’s all Greek to me..
Any recognition feels good, as it is a reward and an affirmation of what one does…Hmm..agreed. But what one does when one is featured in two different magazines and is still trying to decipher what is written in there.
Google translation of both the articles makes it a comic read. Well, sometimes, somethings are best if left unsaid. Hoping good is written about me here is how it all started…
The other day I received this mail from the editor of a popular Italian magazine;
“Dear Sanjeeta, I’m writing you from the Cucchiaio d’Argento office in Italy. We liked your blog and we’re wondering if you would like to be part of an extraordinary project with us. I am the ‘food’ media partner for “The Hundred-Foot Journey” movie, which will be coming to the Italian cinemas at the very beginning of October.”
“So as you noticed the story brings together Indian cuisine, inspiration and love, which your blog is full of. We would be grateful if you represent India with some of the rustic foods from your country.” she continued and waited for my reply.
And then our humble ‘Raab‘ becomes Budino di farina di mais con latticello and Mooli Thepla travels to Italy as Thepla di ravanelli through a page called Amore, cucina e curry e le ricette di Sanjeeta or Love, food & curry recipe and Sanjeeta.
Oh…there is one more…a feature article about my work in a popular regional magazine of South India called ‘Aval Vikatan‘ this month.
Quick Brown rice with Capsicum and Almonds
This is one rice recipe which is an absolute favorite of my son. Good for me as apart from being a quick meal to cook, there is also a lot of goodness of brown rice, nuts and vegetables in it.
The brown rice I use is quick to cook unlike the normal brown rice which takes ages to cook even after soaking it for hours.
Ingredients;
(serve 2)
- 2 cups chopped Bell peppers
- 1 cup Brown Basmati rice
- 1 large onion
- 8-10 Almonds
- 2 green chillies
- 2 tbsp Peanut oil or sesame oil
- 2 tbsp. chopped spring onions
- 1 tsp. grated ginger
- 1 cup water
- 1 tsp. lemon juice
- Salt to taste
- Spices
- 5-6 Black peppercorns
- 3 cloves
- 2 cardamom pods
- A small cinnamon stick (1 inch)
- 1 star anise
Method; Wash and soak brown Basmati rice for an hour.
Cook brown Basmati rice in a steamer or pressure cooker (one whistle) with one and a half cup of water.
Chop coloured Bell peppers (shimla mirch) into small cubes. Finely slice onion and grate a small piece of ginger. Roughly crush almonds into small pieces.
Heat oil in a wok or Kadai and add cloves (laung), peppercorn (kali irch), cardamom pods (elaichi), star anise and crushed almonds in it and sauté for a second.
Add sliced onion, grated ginger and chopped capsicum in the wok and sauté on high heat fro 3 minutes.
Take the wok off the flame and add lemon juice and chopped spring onions in it.
Add this Quick Fried Rice with Capsicum and Almonds in the wok and stir slowly to combine all the ingredients.
Serve with yogurt Raita.
Notes;
You can cook the rice along with the vegetables, but this will make the veggies become soggy and loose the crunch in it.
Use any other oil, but Peanut oil gives a better flavor to this recipe.
Substitute brown rice with normal white or Basmati rice in the recipe if you wish.
Do not overcook capsicum, keep the crunch in the vegetables for better taste.
Walnuts, groundnuts or any other nuts would work as good as almonds in this recipe.
Try replacing lemon juice with one tsp. of soya sauce for a different flavor to the recipe.