Easter lunch - Vegetable Pulao and Beef fry

Easter lunch was at my inlaws house, and the spread was as elaborate as my mother-in-law could cook. My father-in-law being the mutton expert, of course got his hands into making a mutton stew to be combined with hot appams, a veg pulao to be had with beef fry (again a dish done Daddy's ishtyle). I guess the only person missing at the table was my Ratish (my bro-in-law)....we caught him online all the way from New Zealand.... only to be a baddie and tempt him with an exceptional account of what lunch was like at 'Home'

Vegetable Pulao


Ingredients:
Long grain basmati rice- 2cups
Carrots - 1/4cup julienned
Beans - 1/4cup diagonally cut
Peas - 1.4cup
Capsicum - 1/4cup diced and cubed
Fried Onions - for garnish
Salt to taste
Ghee 


Boil the carrots, beans and peas till al-dente . Fry the capsicum in a 1tsp of oil into a non-stick pan for a minute and keep aside. In the mean time cook the rice separately till nice and fluffy . While cooking the rice you may want to flavour the rice with 2 cinnamon sticks, 2 cardamom pods, 2 bay leaves, 4 cloves and salt. Once the rice is drained of all the water the spices too can be removed. Into a frying pan, add ghee and simply toss the boiled vegetables for a minute or two and then gently combine with the boiled rice. Garnish the rice with fried onions and serve warm.

Beef fry


Ingredients:
Beef - 500gms
Button onions - 1/2cup
Coconut slivers - 1/4cup
Ginger-2tbs julienned
Garlic - 4 plum sliced
Cardamoms-4
Cloves - 4
Cinnamon sticks - 2 sticks broken
Dry red chillies - 5 broken into pieces
Peppercorns - 10-12 crushed
Turmeric Powder - 1/4tsp
Tomato paste - 1tbs
Salt to taste
Curry leaves- 2 sprigs


Cut the beef into bite size pieces. Crush onion, ginger and garlic onto a chopping board and add into a non stick pan along with the beef. Add rest of the ingredients. Pour enough water to cook and cook for 30minutes till the beef is well cooked and the pan juice is coated on the beef. Heat oil onto a non-stick pan and fry the curry leaves, then add the tomato paste, coconut slivers and cooked beef. Sauté till browned on medium heat.