Finger Licking Food

Our neighbours back in Mysore, India are Gowdas. My mom and the aunties next door are good friends. Every now and then delicious aromas of food used to drift over to where we lived and I always wondered what they cooked. My mom gave me this recipe a few months back and said there was no name to it. When I was making the pulao, the exact same pleasing aroma rose from it and took me back in time. I instantly named it Gowdru Pulao. Gowdru is kannada for Gowdas. :-D I have no idea if such a dish even exists! All I know is its one yummy tasting and aromatic rice dish.

You will need:

1 Cup Basmati Rice

1 1/2 cups Water

1 Cup Cauliflower florets

1/4 Cup Peas (fresh/frozen)

2 Onions

2 tsp ghee

Grind to a rough paste:

5-6 Green chillies

1/4 pc cinnamon

2 cloves

3-4 Garlic cloves

½ “ pc Ginger

1-2 Cardamom

½ bunch coriander

Oil

Salt to taste

2-3 whole hard boiled eggs (optional)

Heat oil in a pressure cooker. Add thinly sliced onions. Saute till onions are cooked through. Add ground masala paste, fry for 2 minutes. Now add the veggies and sauté for a minute. Shell the boiled eggs and make small cuts in the eggs, this will allow the flavours to penetrate while cooking. Add measured water, salt and shelled eggs, on high heat and close lid (update). When the steam begins to rise, lower heat, and add the washed, drained Basmati Rice. Stir well and close lid, turn heat to high. When steam begins to rise, place weight on cooker and lower heat. Cook for 6-7 minutes and turn off. Drizzle ghee on top,mix well before serving with raitha.

This becomes a vegetarian dish without the use of eggs, so don't let the eggs stop you from trying this. Trust me, the aroma is heavenly and well worth the try. You can cut the eggs or serve them whole.

This is my entry to Meeta's "MM:One Dish Dinners" over at What's For Lunch Honey?

Anytime I have guests and mom asks what I'm making, I say "Gowdru Pulao" and she knows what I'm talking about...hehe!

Last Tuesday we had the concluding class of Wilton Course 2. The previous three weeks of class went in making flowers and learning to work with two different kinds of icing other than the regular butter cream (used to frost cakes) At the beginning of each class, our instructor usually points to the last page (or the cover) and says” At the end of this Course, you will be able to take home a cake which looks like this…”

And there is a ring of laughter throughout class,and we are loudly declaring…'oh no way can we do that' :-D I can almost hear my instructor now saying, 'oh yes, you can!'

Well, much that it looked like an impossible feat at the beginning of the course, the last class proved it all wrong. This is how my cake looked at the end of Course 2 :)

All flowers were made using Royal Icing, which is a stiff kind of icing and dries very quickly. Once these flowers are dried, they can be stored for a long long time and can be used on any cake.