Basil Fried Rice

Cook white rice in rice cooker. I used Basmati.

Take peanut oil and butter in wok. Add julienned onions and green and red chilies. Add chopped garlic and grated ginger. Add basil leaves.

Beat eggs and add oyster sauce to eggs. Add half the eggs to the wok and keep stirring till egg is cooked and scrambled.

Make sure there is enough oil for rice, if not add more. Add salt and little bit of sugar. Add the white rice and keep stirring. Add the remaining eggs, stir until cooked and serve.

Enjoy.

Jeera Polao

Wash and soak rice.
Heat oil and ghee.
Add cumin seeds, whole black peppercorn and dried red chilies.
Fry for few minutes.
When seeds sputter, drain rice and add to oil. Stir fry for 3-5 minutes.
Add grated ginger.
Add salt and water (double the amount of rice).
Wait until water comes to a boil.
Cover and cook on low heat for about 20 minutes.
Serve!

"Nasi Goreng"

This recipe was from http://www.food.com/recipe/indonesian-fried-rice-nasi-goreng-35551 but I altered it as I didn't have shrimp paste or the time to add meat.

Ingredients:


2 cups Trophy Basmati rice , cooked
2 tablespoons oil
2 egg, lightly beaten

0.5 large onion, peeled and sliced

2 cloves garlic, peeled and sliced
3 red chilies, sliced

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon sweet soy sauce
sliced cucumber (to garnish)

sliced tomato (to garnish)

bunch of spinach, optional

Directions:

Stir the rice with a fork to separate the grains.

Heat the oil in the wok and fry the onion, garlic and chilies until the onion is tender. Beat the egges and pour in, stirring to scramble. Add the spinach.

Increase the heat to high and add the rice, salt and soy sauce, adding a little oil if necessary, stirring constantly until well mixed and heated through.

Garnish with cucumber, and tomato. The fresh cucumber really makes a diffeence!

Delicately Spiced Fried Rice starring Star Anise

In Dhaka this summer, I went to Mainland China- a Chinese restaurant chain originating from India. Everything they served was very different from my idea of "Chinese food", but DELICIOUS! I had "Claypot Rice" that was one of the the best things I've ever had, and I have been craving it ever since. So I tried to conjure up what it tasted like, and created this recipe, and it's one of the best rice dishes I've had, if I may say so myself :)

Ingredients
2 cups basmati rice, cooked

6-8 tablespoons peanut oil (or other vegetable oil)
8 dried red chilies, julienned
6/7 star anise seeds, whole (i think this is the star ingredient of this dish)
2 star anise seeds, ground (optional, add if you like the sweet-spice flavor)
1 clove
6-8 black peppercorns
0.5 a large onion
2 cloves of garlic
0.5 teaspoon sugar
salt to taste

Make two cups basmati rice in a rice cooker or pot.

In a wok, heat peanut oil and turn down the heat. Put julienned dried red chilies, whole star anise seeds, clove, and peppercorns in the oil. Let it infuse in low heat for about 10-12minutes, turning up heat will burn spices. Slice the onion very thinly. Mince the cloves of garlic. Put the onion and the garlic in the infused oil, and stir fry on medium heat. Put the sugar in the oil without stirring. Let it sit for few minutes.

Add the cooked rice to the wok. Sprinkle with salt and ground star anise (optional, add if you like the sweet-spice flavor)

The shrimp is optional and can be added at the end and tossed. To make the shrimp, I coated shrimp with eggwhite, cornstarch, salt, and then fried.
Star Anise

Murg Malai Kabab (Chicken Kabab) with Herb Butter Rice

Chicken:

This is Vah Chef's Recipe: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5l7CuYhfuAk

For the rice:

I made rice in the rice cooker and boiled some potatoes in salt water. Then took butter in a pan and added cilantro, jalopeno, crushed red pepper, mint. Then I added the potatoes and fried for some time. Then added the cooked rice. Added salt and stir fried the rice. Added some more butter over the hot rice.

Sticky Rice with Mango

Cook 2 cups of jasmine rice in rice cooker, with half cup sugar and adding one cup of coconut milk instead of one cup of water. Separately mix some more sugar and coconut milk. When rice is done, let it cool. Add the remaining coconut milk. You can also add some coconut icecream (I used Mexico Helados Coconut icecream). Chill and serve with chopped mangoes.

Fried Couscous

I used a box of Far East Original Couscous and cooked it following directions on the box.

Then fried onions, green and red chilies, peas and corn in oil. Sprinkled with salt and pepper. Added beaten eggs and stirred. Then added the couscous. Fried for few more minutes, added soy sauce and stirred.

Tehari (Rice with Beef)

It's Siddika Kabir's Tehari with some changes. Cut beef into small pieces. Put in onion, ginger, garlic, turmeric, chili, coriander and cumin pastes and mix. Add salt. Put on stove with some water. I cooked it for about an hour to soften the meat.

In a large pot, fry onion slices. Add cinnamon, bay leaves, cloves and cardamom. Add some cumin seeds and shahi jeera. Fry for a few minutes. Add the meat with the spices and stir at high heat. After koshano, pick out the meat pieces and set aside.

Take basmati or kalojeera rice. Wash and soak in water for about 10mins, then drain. Put the rice in the masala from the beef. Fry for a few minutes. Then add water (2cups for 1cup of rice). Add salt and rose/kewra water. When the water comes to a boil, add the meat and slivered green chilies. Cover and cook on medium low heat for 20mins.

Fried Rice

1. Make 3 cups of Basmati Rice in the Rice Cooker. When done, turn off and stir lightly with a fork to make rice fluffy.

2. In a large wok, heat oil. Put in mixed vegetables. I put in 3/4 of a small bag. Stir fry at high heat for 4-5 minutes. Add sliced green chilies and largely diced onions. Stir fry for 2-3 minutes. Add the cooked rice and keep stirring at high heat for 4-5 minutes. Sprinkle salt to taste.

3. Beat two eggs in a bowl and add 3-4 tablespoons of soy sauce. Add half the mixture to the rice and stir. When incorporated, add the rest and stir. This will give the rice a yellowish color and add flavor. Keep cooking for 4-5 minutes more. Sprinkle some black pepper (optional).... See More

This is one style of fried rice, you could also add eggs after frying the veges towards the beginning and stir and add the soy sauce at the end. That would leave large pieces of eggs whereas this leaves none.

Motor Polao (Rice with Peas)

Kacchi Biryani (Rice and Mutton)

Mutton/Goat/Lamb 2 kg
Basmati Rice 1 kg
Clarified Butter/Ghee 3/4 cups
Potatoes 3 large
2 onions sliced
Ginger paste 2 tablespoon
Garlic paste 2 teaspoon
Radhuni Biryani Masala Mix 1/2 pack
Ground Cumin 1 tablespoon
Crushed Red Peppers 6
Yogurt 1 cup
Red and Yellow Color slight
Rosewater 2 tablespoons
Kewra Water 2 tablespoons
Salt 2 tablespoon
Oil 1/2 cup

Wash meat, put salt and keep for 30minutes. Wash again.

Mix color and coat potato pieces with it. Then fry the potatoes till brownish in oil. Set aside.

In the potato fry oil, fry onions till brown in ghee and set it aside. Crush the fried onions when cool.

Take meat in the dish you will cook in, add ginger, garlic, onion, cumin, Radhuni spice, yogurt, rose and kewra water and mix well. Put potatoes on top of meat. Put the onion fry oil.

Wash and drain the rice. Boil 12 cups of water, add salt and add rice to it. As soon as rice starts boiling, pour the water in another pot and keep it. Take one cup of water from the rice water and put 0.5 cup of ghee in the water and put this in the meat and mix. Then spread the rice over the meat. Mix the rest of the ghee with the rice water and put the water in the pot so that the water is in level with rice, not below or above. Cover it with aluminum foil. Take the food color remaining from potatoes and put 4/5 spoonfuls of colored water in a scattered way.

Heat oven to 350 Fahrenheit . Keep in the oven for 3 hours. Sometimes the rice near the top dries up too much. After 2 hours of cooking, I flipped rice on top with the rice below. Be careful not to mix up the meat layer though.

This makes for 8-10 people.