Tomato & sweet corn pulao

Ingredients:

Rice – 1 & 1/2 cup
Water – 3 cups
Oil – 2 tablespoons
Cloves – 4
Black pepper (whole) – 6
Cinnamon Stick – 3″ piece
Bay leaf (dried) – 1
Onion – 2 medium (finely chopped)
Tomatoes – 3 medium (grated)
Sweet Corn kernels - 3/4 cup
Salt – to taste
Red chilli powder – 1 teaspoon
Green Chillies – 2 (finley chopped)
Cumin seeds – 1 teaspoon
Garam masala – 1/2 teaspoon (optional)

 Directions:

1. Wash and soak rice for about half an hour.
2. Now grate tomatoes, Wash corn kernels and keep aside.
3. Take a pan which has a lid / cover. Heat oil in the pan, add cumin seeds and let them splutter. Now add, bay leaf, cinnamon stick, black pepper and cloves. Fry them for about a minute.
4. Add chopped green chillies followed by chopped onion keeping a little gap. Add a pinch of salt at this stage. Cook onion till they become translucent add grated tomato and cook for 5 minutes.
5. Now add rice, water, salt, red chilli powder and corn kernels. Cover the lid and let rice cook on medium flame for about 20 minutes. Keep stirring in between to make sure they do not stick at the bottom. After 15 minutes, check if the rice have cooked. The way to do that is, take one or two pieces of rice out and crush them using your finger, if its soft and mushy, it is done. But if it is even a little bit hard it’s not cooked right and you would have to give it some more time.