Tomato Spinach Pulao - Step by Step Recipe

Whenever I post step-by-step recipes for baking, most of you love it, try it and give me your thoughts. I have been itching to do the same for normal recipes too, but the only reason stopping me was the poor lighting in my kitchen. After many months of giving myself this excuse, I decided to go ahead and do it anyway.

Because of this, you will see pictures with different lighting in this post, so bear with me. Hopefully you find it useful (not the lighting, the recipe!)

After all that talk, I'm hungry. Let's have a nice bowl of hot tomato spinach pulao, shall we? If you want to skip the pictures and yada-yada, scroll to the end of this post for the recipe in one place.

Ok. First, chop 4 cups of green spinach, 2 tomatoes and grate 1 carrot and set aside (ignore the green chillies, we don't need them, unless you want to use them and reduce the amount of red chilly powder in the recipe).

Heat 1 tbsp oil in a kadai.

Add 1 sliced onion and 3 cloves of chopped garlic to this.

Fry until the onions turn transparent and brown slightly.

Time to bring out the 2 chopped tomatoes. Add these to the fried onions.

Cook well until the tomatoes have wilted and turned soft.

To this, add 1 tbsp coriander powder and 1 tsp jeera. Mix well.

Time to spice things up a bit. Bring out your red chilly powder and add about 2 tsp of that. Go on, dare yourself and add another tsp if you wish ;)

We've already added 2 tomatoes but since this is tomato spinach pulao, we will need a more dense tomato flavour. Canned tomato paste works best.

Add 1 tbsp of that and mix well. If you don't want to use the paste, add 1 more large tomato in the first step.

To this, add the chopped spinach and..

.. grated carrot and mix well.

Close the kadai and let it cook on medium-low fire for about 10 mins. Don't add any water, the spinach will give out its own water while cooking making the mixture soft.

Open kadai carefully after 10 mins and add salt.

Add about 3 cups cooked rice to this mixture. I used basmati rice but any rice will do, even warmed leftover rice.

Gently fold from one side so that the rice isn't mashed up too much.

Garnish with some roasted cashwes and serve hot. I roasted the cashewnuts in the microwave on medium power for a minute. Saves time and oil.

Here's the pulao recipe again, all in one place.

Tomato Spinach Pulao

Serves: 3 to 4

What I Used:

3 cups cooked rice

4 cups chopped green spinach

1 grated carrot

2 chopped tomatoes

1 tbsp tomato paste (or add another tomato)

1 sliced onion

3 cloves chopped garlic

1 tbsp coriander powder / malli podi / dania powder

1 tsp jeera / jeerakam / cumin seeds

2 tsp red chilly powder

1 tbsb oil

Roasted cashewnuts to garnish (optional)

Salt to taste

How I Made It:

1. Heat oil and fry the onions and garlic for 3 mins. Add the tomatoes to this and cook well until soft and mashed.

2. Add the coriander powder, jeera and red chilly powder. Mix well and fry for 2 mins. Add tomato paste to this, if using, and mix well.

3. Add chopped spinach and grated carrot. Close and cook for 10 mins until soft.

4. Add salt and cooked rice to this. Fold gently and serve after 3o mins, garnished with roasted cashewnuts.