We love going to the local farmers/flea market on Sundays during spring and summer here. They are the only natural atmosphere, which come close resembling to the vegetable markets of my hometown, Nandyala, India.
Back home at Nandyala, most of the produce sold in markets usually comes from neighboring villages or from the farms around the town. Whereas here in this small city in the USA, where we live now, most of the produce comes in boxes and crates from Oregon and California, even at the local ‘Farmers Market’. Thriving small farms are rare and few, it seems, surprising; after all this is midwest, the heartland of America.
But there are a couple of stalls that sell limited variety of produce and fruits, which are truly locally grown and from real soil. We usually buy whatever they had available that week from them. Along with some fruits and veggies, yesterday I purchased radishes, green onions, corn and I prepared pulao for lunch today with them.
Fresh corn, green onions and red radishes, they all have a very delicate flavor and they don’t take well to overcooking, particularly red radishes. Pulao is perfect recipe for them, lightly sauté and mix them with cooked basmati rice, sprinkle some limejuice, viola… delicious colorful meal with fresh spring flavors will be ready.
Cook:
1cup basmati rice in 2 cups of water
Wash, cut and chop:
1 bunch of fresh radishes – quartered
1 bunch of green onions – finely chopped
1 fresh corn – husked and kernels chopped
1 red onion and 4 green chillies – finely sliced lengthwise
1 fistful of fresh green peas – shelled from pods
Prepare or Take Out From the Pantry and Fridge:
1 teaspoon of ginger-garlic-cilantro paste (GGC Paste)
1 teaspoon of clove-cinnamon- cumin-coriander seed powder (CCCC Powder)
½ teaspoon of salt or to taste
Few sprigs of fresh cilantro – finely chopped to garnish
Lemon/lime juice to sprinkle
Sauté, Mix and Serve:
Heat 2 teaspoons of peanut oil or ghee in a big pan or kadai on medium heat. Add the GGC Paste and CCCC powder, sauté for few minutes, until they leave the raw smell. Continuously stir and take care not to burn the masala. Add all the veggies listed above and sauté for few minutes, until they soften. Add the cooked basmati rice to this sautéed veggie mixture. Sprinkle in salt and finely chopped cilantro. Mix thoroughly. Serve hot with a curry and a cup of yogurt for a light meal.
A rice recipe after a long time 🙂 The pulao looks colorful with all the pink , green and yellows. I have never tried radish in a pulao, wonder how it tastes. But iam definetely going to give this a try. Your mint pulao is a SUPER HIT at my home 🙂
BTW how do u store the GCC paste, and what are the quantities. I have seen a lot of your recipes that has this paste. So if you give me some tips, it will be very handy for me when i cook from your recipe( which is quite often).
And those tomato plants are perfect for Green Blog Project .
Comment by Priya — May 15, 2006 @ 4:22 pm
We tend to loose our dietary control with these types of fried rice preparations (basmati tastes great) also Vijay complains about making him sleep at work. :)That’s why I don’t prepare pulaos often. Our afternoon meals are usually very light.
Fresh radishes, the kind you’d get from farmers market taste mildly sweet and won’t smell that bad too. They are quite good in this recipe, Priya. Try it.
I’ll certainly blog about my CCG paste and CCCC powder, anyway I’ve to prepare a fresh batch next week.
Thanks Priya.
Comment by Indira — May 15, 2006 @ 4:34 pm
What a co-incidence…I made pulao with corn and bell peppers last night too…its such an easy meal…although I cook my rice along with the veggies…that way the rice gets the veggie flavor.
Comment by Nabeela — May 15, 2006 @ 4:35 pm
Hi Indira,
Pulav with radish, really nice idea. Normally I’d do mullangi pulusu, raita, curry, perugu pachchadi, that’s it. I like this one to adding in pulav. Going to do next time when I buy radish. I usually mix boiled rice to this type of prepared curry, when i’m short on time to do biryani/pulav.
Vineela
Comment by vineela krishna — May 15, 2006 @ 4:48 pm
Hello Indira,
I am a regular visitor to ur blog.I love ur blog!!! Good job.
It’s a coincidence that I have prepared pulao yesterday with corn and spring onions.Will definitely try ur radish pulao recipe.
Thank you.
Comment by Pinky — May 15, 2006 @ 5:11 pm
Hi Indira,
Radish Pulav looks delicious and new to me.Thanx for sharing your recipe.
Comment by menutoday — May 15, 2006 @ 8:52 pm
How odd to have a farmer’s market with non-local produce! I have never heard of such a thing. Here in northern CA (somewhat obviously) it’s all local, but even when I lived in central PA, there was a nice market with lots of local farmers (most especially the Amish). Granted it wasn’t a huge market, and it ran only June through September, but still, it had great produce – and the tomatos were way better than what you can get in CA. I love markets of any kind.
When I visited India last year my very very favorite thing to do was to wander local markets and ooh and aah over the produce. But really, you could say this is true of any trip – local or far-flung. I always gravitate towards the markets. The best I have seen to date was in Florence. India was a close second though.
🙂
Comment by Diane — May 15, 2006 @ 9:22 pm
yummm.. nice recipe..simple and fresh. I’ve never tried radish in a rice dish. Sounds intriguing! I would have never thought that the farmers market would buy/ship produce from out-of-state!! what a bummer 🙁
cheers!
Comment by Saffron Hut — May 15, 2006 @ 10:18 pm
Hai indira,
The recipe looks great. The cooks thesarus which you had referred(for green onions) is one great site for all information of vegetables from different countries. When you shop you dont tend to notice prouduce other than indian. Now i take time to check out the vegetables and fruits and beginning to include them. Recently i tried one friut called Rambutan from indonesia. It is the indian lichee(the name is what i liked more than the friuts apperance). It was great. Once agin great combo.
Shayna
Comment by shayna — May 16, 2006 @ 4:57 am
Actually — in response to the previous comment — rambutans and lichees are not the same thing. They may be related, but I grew up in Malaysia with both fruits and know that they are different in appearance and taste. Rambutans have thick, coarse “sprouts” on the outer skin (“rambut” means “hair” in Malay and Indonesian) and a larger, woody pit; lichees are smaller, with a thinner red skin, and a smooth black stone.
Comment by Preeta — May 16, 2006 @ 11:31 am
Indira,That looks absolutely fantastic. I am adding it to my to-do list:).
Comment by shilpa — May 16, 2006 @ 1:15 pm
Hi Indira
I tried making pulao like this, it came out very well, I made some Capsicum gravy (few cashewes +almond paste) it was yummy I wanted to eat but we had 2 unexpected guests they finished off all :((
I am planning to make some more..aghhhh hate emm…
Comment by Laitha — May 16, 2006 @ 1:46 pm
Indira, do you guys used to have vegetable vendors in their rolling carts and fish vendors in their bicycles?? Never knew they all are doing the best marketing,even Wal-mart could think of!
Indira replies:
Yep and yep.:) Street vendors on rolling carts and on bicycles selling fresh produce from the market is a common scene during morning times. Fish, only during summer season, when the nearby ‘cheruvu’ (man made lake for irrigation purposes) dries out.
In Nandyala, there is a big and old ‘ritu bazaar’ (farmers market) near our house. Every morning, my mil (or sometimes we) would go to the market to pickup fresh veggies for that day’s cooking. The market is centrally located in our town, very busy and in recent years, it did undergo major changes, now everything is neat and tidy with cute little stalls, water fountains and a separate place to dump the veggie waste etc.,
Comment by L.G — May 16, 2006 @ 2:09 pm
Have never tried Pulao with Radishes. Need to try this.
Comment by Krithika Ramachandran — May 17, 2006 @ 12:04 pm
The pulao looks colorful.
I have tried your moong bean plantain curry. It came out delicious. I have posted a picture.
Comment by RP — May 17, 2006 @ 5:55 pm
Hi Indira,
You are in my Blogroll
thanks.
Indira replies:
and you are on mine, :), thanks Aparna.
Comment by Aparna — May 18, 2006 @ 4:22 am
Tried it to wonderful effect.
Prepared it for 15 people!
Indira replies:
I am glad and thanks for letting me know.
Sounds like a big get-together.
Comment by Vidyanath Tirumala Penugonda — May 18, 2006 @ 12:38 pm
Hi Indira,
Tomorrow, I am planning to make raddish rice..will let you know my FB. Meanwhile, introduced yr site to many of my friends and they tried plantain moong curry, peanut chutney and all were super duper hits!!!
Can u tell me on making colocasia roast? Waiting for yr new and yummy blogs alongwith recipes.
One more thing, on seeing yr methi plant, got inspired and tried. Oooh, my…just like yrs, my pot is full of methi leaves now.Thanks a lot..
Rgds.
Indira replies:
Hello Rama, thanks.
I have not yer blogged about colocasia roast, but few other Indian food bloggers did. You can find out the recipe for it at ‘Food in the Main’ food blog. Please check the side bar for the link.
About methi – they are easy to grow, aren’t they?:)
Comment by Rama — May 19, 2006 @ 2:02 pm
[…] Pulao with Red Radish and Fresh Corn – bei Mahanandi […]
Pingback by Foodfreak » Geröstete Radieschen — March 27, 2011 @ 9:47 am
I just used your recipe to cook my first radish from my garden. It was beautiful thank you!
Comment by Ria — October 3, 2012 @ 3:10 am