Ammalu’s Kitchen

Brown rice coconut milk pilau

When Lata of LA Gourmet Chef asked a question about Brown rice in dining hall, I decided to post this recipe as we often make it, taken and adapted from a cookbook. We moved to brown rice from the normal sona masuri white rice 4 months ago as one of the steps to a healthy regime from an almost sedate lifestyle.

This recipe tastes best when made with Long grain basmati rice. I didn’t have any in my pantry , so, I used the long grain brown rice. The normal serving size as mentioned in various supermarkets is 1/4 cup of uncooked rice which carries 170 calories.

Lata this is for you…

Wash 1 and 1/2 cups of Brown Rice and keep aside for about 20 min in water. Meanwhile take

1 Medium sized onion

1 tablespoon of garlic paste

1 tablespoon of ginger paste

1 and 1/2 cups of coconut milk ( do not exceed this quantity)

3 green chillies , chopped finely( adjust according to your taste)

1 teaspoon cumin seeds

vegetables of your choice

Salt to taste.

In a thick bottomed pan , heat oil and add cumin seeds to splutter, then add the chopped onions, green chillies and saute for a 2-3 minutes. Add ginger , garlic paste and saute for some more time. The onions should turn brown and crisp. To this you can add your favourite vegetables. I added a few pepper strips ,tomatoes and spinach .Add the coconut milk and let it simmer until done and keep aside. Meanwhile Start cooking the rice by adding a teaspoon of oil , salt to taste and pouring 3 cups of water in a vessel . keep checking once in a while. The cooking process for rice mostly completes in 50-60 minutes . To this rice add the coconut milk curry . This is basically a creamy concoction like a risotto . Sometimes , I add just 1 and a 1/2 cups of water and 1 and 1/2 cups of coconut milk and cook the rice in this mixture and add the veggies later.This works well too. Its best to add the vegetables later.

Note : if you want to cook the rice in the coconut milk then, do not cook in a pressure cooker or a rice cooker, it becomes a little gooey and the grains don’t cook well. Its best to cook in a thick bottomed vessel.