Green Peas Pulav with Toor Dal for Taste & Create

Dear All, First of all, here's wishing you all a very Happy Ganesh Chaturthi, may lord ganesha bring happiness and wealth to everyone!

For this month's Taste & Create I was paired up with the very talented Shaista Tabrez from MixCalculations. She has some really good collection of recipes so do check out her blog. I chose to make Green Peas Pulav and Toor Dal from here blog and I am so glad both turned out fantastic. It was a perfect sunday night dinner for me and so simple to make! I did make few changes to the original recipe like omotting garlic in the pulav and addition of jaggery in dal. The recipe below will serve 4. This entry is off to Taste&Create event started by Nicole of ForTheLoveOfFood and is hosted by Min of BadGirlsKitchen Green Peas Pulav is also off to Chaitra's RiceFeast event and Toor Dal is off to MyLegumeLoveAffair-14 hosted by Susan of The Well-Seasoned Cook. Nandini and Ammu both have passed the below awards to me, thank you dears, thats very sweet of you gals. Ingredients for Peas Pulav: 1 cup basmati rice soaked in water for 30 mins 1/2 frozen cup green peas 1 medium onion thinly sliced 2 green chillies slit 2 Bay Leaf 1 cinnamon stick 2 whole star anise 2 tbsp cashewnuts 3 cardamon pods 3 cloves 1 tsp cumin seeds 1 tsp butter 1 tsp oil

Salt to taste 2 cups water Procedure for Peas Pulav:

• In a heavy bottom pan heat together butter and oil, add in cashews and sliced onions.
• Fry them for 3-4 mins until golden brown. Remove them and keep aside.
• In the same pan add in cardamon pods, bay leaves, cloves, cinnamon stick, cumin seeds and slit green chillies. Saute for 2 mins.
• Now add in the rice, green peas, salt and water.
• Cover and cook until the rice is cooked properly.
• Garnish with brown onions and cashews.
• Serve hot with dal or raita.

Ingredients for Toor Dal: 1 cup toor dal (Yellow pigeon peas) 2 medium onions finely chopped 2 tsp ghee (clarified butter) 1 tsp cumin seeds 1/2 tsp ginger paste 1 tsp mustard seeds 2 cloves 2 green chillies slit 1/2 tsp turmeric powder 1/2 tsp red chilli powder 1 tsp jaggery Salt to taste Procedure to make Toor Dal:

• Pressure cook toor dal along with turmeric powder, salt and red chilli powder. Add enough water about 2 cups.
• In a vessel, heat ghee, add in cumin seeds, mustard seeds, cloves , split green chillies, ginger paste and onions.
• Saute onions for 3 to 4 mins, until they are lightly browned.
• Now add in the cooked toor dal and jaggery along with little water if the dal is too thick. Simmer on medium heat for another 5 to 6 mins.
• Garnish with fresh coriander leaves and serve hot with rice.
• I had some left over onions and cashews so i used the same for garnishing.