Green Rice with Chickpeas & Soya Nuggets..

The green rice is an inspiration from a friends recipe. I would blog about that actual recipe soon, but this is something that I adapted and made without any onions or garlic and added some soya nuggets and chickpeas to make it more filling and to save myself from making an extra side ;)..

This turned out be a completely tasty one dish meal and we loved it.

Ingredients

Cooked Rice, fluffy and grains separate - 3 cups

Cilantro leaves, stems removed - 1 1/2 cup

White Chickpeas - 1/2 cup, soaked overnite or in hot water for abt 2 hrs.

Soya nuggets - 1 cup

Green Chillies, slit - 2

Ginger, roughly chopped - 1 inch piece

Udad dal - 1 tsp

Mustard seeds - 1 tsp

Cumin seeds - 1 tsp

Lemon juice - 1 1/2 tsp ( optional )

Salt - to taste

Method

- Heat abt a tsp of oil in a pan, add the cilantro leaves, ginger and green chillies and saute till the cilantro leaves wilt. Take off from flame. Once cooled, blend in a mixie to form a fine mixture.

- Soak the soya nuggets in hot water for abt 5 mins, then squeeze out the water and pressure cook them with salt and about 1/4 cup water for 1 whistle.

- The chickpeas have to be cooked too. So either pressure cook the soaked chickpeas with little salt till soft but not mushy or use canned ones.

- Once all these are ready, in a pan, heat little oil, add the mustard seeds and udad dal. Once the mustard seeds crackle, add the cumin seeds, the ground cilantro paste and the cooked soya nuggets and the chickpeas. Add little salt and saute for about 2 mins. Switch off flame.

- Now, add the cooked rice, lemon juice and mix everything well so that the rice gets evenly coated with the mixture.

- Serve hot with yogurt and pickle or papad.

Note :

- I think mint leaves would be great in this too. Just plain mint or a mixture of both mint and cilantro would taste great.

- I think next time, I would increase the quantity of cilantro slightly more, just for the color, though tastewise, this was just rite and gave it the rite flavour.

- Adding onions and garlic would bring about a nicer flavour to this rice, but this time I opted for not adding both.

- I cut the soya nuggets into smaller pieces as the chunks are very large otherwise.

- Lemon juice is optional, but I think it gives it a nice touch.

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