Peppered Ghee Rice with Fresh Green Peas - Pressure Cooker Method (with stove top instructions)

When in college our weekend treats where at Annapoorna a vegetarian restaurant. The restaurant is still around, always crowded and the food more or less tastes exactly the same from back then. Anyway at the time they were just starting to introduce Indo Chinese items on their menu.

Indo Chinese fried rice unlike its Chinese counterpart does not have any soy sauce in it. It looks almost white in color. The flavoring comes from black pepper.

Spices - clockwise from bottom, marathi moggu (capeberry), star anise, cinnamon, cloves in the middles - amount not indicative of what was used in the recipe.

Once I harvested the peas for the season as I was pondering what to make it with it, facebook readers gave me plenty of ideas but in my mind this peppered fresh peas kept coming back to the top.

Eating fresh and even shelling them is a treat and mostly possible only if you grow them or find them at farmers markets. This season I had a fairly substantial harvest. Like everybody knows frozen peas are nothing compared to fresh ones.

The recipe is made with minimal spices to let the flavor and taste of peas to come through. No need for a ton of spices just the minimal but with a bold flavor. This is like a hybrid of Indo Chinese Fried Rice and the Indian Ghee Rice.

Peppered Rice with Fresh Green Peas - Pressure Cooker Method
Preparation Time:10 minutes
Cooking Time:25 minutes
Ingredients

1. 1 cups of Basmati Rice
2. 2 cups of fresh peas or frozen
3. 1 cup of sliced onions
4. 2 sliced green chilies
5. 1 tbsp of black pepper
6. whole spices - cinnamon 1/2 inch, 2 cloves, a piece of star anise, a small tiny piece of marathi moggu (or capeberry)
7. salt to taste
8. 1 tbsp of ghee

Method

1. Wash and soak the Basmati rice for about 20 minutes or so. In the meantime heat the ghee, do not overheat and add the whole spices. After about a minute add the sliced onions and slit green chillies and saute till the onions just start to brown. Do not let it get black.
2. Add in the black pepper and saute for about 1/2 a minute. Now add the drained rice, salt and saute for about 6-8 minutes till the ghee is absorbed and the rice is looking shiny.
3. Add the required amount of water and let it come to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium and let the rice be 3/4th cooked and the water almost absorbed. Add in the fresh peas, give a mix and close the pressure cooker. (If not using pressure cooker reduce the heat further and let all the water get absorbed and turn off the heat).
4. Reduce the heat to a tad below medium and let cook for exactly 8 minutes. Turn off the heat and move the pressure cooker from the stove.
5. Let rest and fluff with a fork.

Serve with a raita of choice.

'Not so famous' Berries - foraged and home grown!

Blueberries, Raspberries, Strawberries - all of them popular and available in the grocery stores and farmers market throughout the year. Nothing special about them. This is not a post about those berries but some of the other berries which are not quite so popular.

Mulberries, Wild Black Raspberries and Gooseberries - all what you will not find in stores. They are either foraged or grown in backyard gardens.

Mulberries - foraged on the side of the road

I have written about mulberries before found on the side of the road near our house where we go for walks. Back then nobody even paid any attention to the fruits that littered the side walk. Fast forward a few years the tree always has visitors stopping by to taste. Some even carry small Ziploc bags to collect and take home.

Gooseberries

Gooseberries on the other hand are usually grown in people's backyard. I have not seen them in stores or even farmer's markets. My neighbor was the one who introduced and shared with us his goose berries one year. I planted a couple of plants and they are starting to produce fruit now. These are different from the Indian variety, other than the puckering sour taste when they are young these ripen into sweet berries.

Ripening Gooseberries

When young they can be easily used as substitute for tamarind. I did just that the other day when making kara kuzhambu with field beans (mochai) and needless to say they were a perfect substitute.

Black Raspberries - foraged on the side of the road

Black Raspberries were another find along the same road. DD2 is the one who is very excited about these berries and is always ready to come along for the walk just to collect and taste them. After watching them for a while now they have just started to ripen. Slightly sour but with a sweet after taste and a lot smaller than the store bought red ones. We carried a few in the palm of our hands to photograph the rest were eaten right near the plant and on the way.