Being a Vegetarian by choice, as a family, Vegetables, Herbs & Fruits are a major chunk in my grocery bill. After bringing them home from the farmer’s market or the super grocer, I end up wrapping the herbs either in plastic bag or keep them loosely wrapped in a kitchen towel to avoid getting rotten quickly. With the rest of the vegetables like Cabbage, Carrots, Chayote and Peppers, they are either stored as it is or in a very thin plastic bag. After a week, by any chance if they are not cooked up , they slowly begin to rot. Sometimes, just incase if I have bought them in larger quantity, I would end of chopping them into pieces, pack them in a ziplock and put it away in the freezer compartment.
OXO was kind enough to send me two of their produce keepers to conduct an experiment and I totally loved it. Honestly I wasn’t expecting much of a difference, but the fact is , THERE IS !!
How did I Test?
Outcome !!
After a week, the herbs appeared to stay fresher, greener in OXO’s produce keepers than in the Ziploc or plastic bags. The ones in Plastic bag had slowly began to wilt away.
With the herbs from the OXO produce keepers, I used them up to cook up this delicious herb infused Pulao – Mint coriander Pulao. A little twist to my regular vegetable pulao. Serve them with some Raitha or just spiced yogurt.
Ingredients
- 1 Cup Basmati Rice
- 1/2 Cup Vegetables - diced carrot+ peas
- 1 Small Onion finely sliced
- 1 tsp freshly grated ginger
- 1 tblspn of Ghee / melted butter
- a good squeeze of lemon juice
- 1/4 of Cardamom+Cinnamon and cloves powder mix
- Salt to taste
To grind
- 1/2 of Coriander Leaves
- 1/2 Cup of Mint Leaves
- 1 Green Chilli
- 1 tsp coriander powder
Whole Spices
- 2 Small Bayleaves
- 1 ’ Cinnamon Stick
- 1 Star anise
- 1 Bada Elachi
Garnish
- coriander leaves, finely chopped
- a sprig of mint leaves
Instructions
- Wash Basmati rice under running tap water twice. Drain all the water and set the rice aside for 30 minutes.Prepare a paste in a blender by grinding coriander leaves, mint leaves, green chilli and coriander powder. If needed at 2- 3 tsp of water.
- Heat Ghee/Oil in a non-stick pan with a tightly fitted lid. Drop in whole spices,sauté for 2 minutes.
- Add sliced onions, freshly grated ginger and saute until translucent.Add chopped vegetables, saute for 2 more min. Stir in the Basmati rice and sauté until it gets nearly dry . Add the Prepared green paste and mix well.
- Add in 1.5 Cups of Water of boiled water from the kettle and adjust the salt. . Squeeze in some fresh lemon juice and the pinch of spice mix. Set the flame to medium.
- Once the water from the pulao is nearly evaporated, cover, and then reduce the setting to lowest. Allow the rice to cook for 5 minutes and switch off the gas. Even if the gas is turned off, I would let the rice be covered for another 5 minutes. Rice cooks with the leftover steam. Garnish with chopped coriander leaves and mint sprig.
- Fluffy vegetable rice is ready to be served along with Curry or a Raitha.
Absolutely love this pulao and the oxo product ..is the product available in US? thinking that it will be available, where can i find those ?
Love the pictures!! ❤️❤️ the produce keeper sounds like a wise idea to save herbs!
Thank you Sathya. It is available in US. Head to Amazon .. you may find it.
Thank you dear for your lovely comments. It is very much Dolphia. The herbs are fresh for the last 2 weeks in the produce keepers, which I couldn't have expected otherwise.
Delicious rice recipe and nice review about the product 🙂
As always beautiful pics Sandy! What a great product to store herbs, wish we can get that in India 😀
That second last picture of the pulao made my tummy growl! I wish I could get this stuff here, I always struggle with my bunch of coriander and mint and always end up throwing it… 🙁
Beautiful pictures Sandhya..Thanks for writing about this product. To be frank I have never heard about it before 🙂 Very informative post
the product sounds amazing… I store the leaves wrapped in kitchen towel but like you said they loose their charm in a weeks time..
Yummy pulao …great clicks