Pudina rice (Mint rice)

Pudina rice or mint rice – I have shared 2 pudina rice recipes in this post. The first recipe is a one pot dish & the second one is a tempered rice made with precooked rice. Pudina rice is a delicious & flavorful South Indian style dish made with fresh pudina or mint leaves, rice & spices. Mint also called as pudina in various Indian languages is often used to flavor chutney, Indian curries and biryani.

This Pudina rice is always a winner for its simplicity, taste & great aroma. It can be served alone with some curd or a raita.

Pudina rice goes well in lunch box or even for a meal to serve with some gravy or curry. It pairs wonderfully well with any simple curry. I have tried the one pot dish with many curries like bagara baingan or chicken curry or chicken kurma and is very easy to make.

To make pudina rice (first recipe) mint, coriander leaves, green chilies, ginger garlic and onion or coconut are ground together and then roasted well to bring out the flavors and then rice is cooked in this mixture.

The second recipe is made similar to the lemon rice. It is great on flavors and tastes amazing.

Variations you can make

These variations are for the first recipe (one pot)

• 1. I have used coconut, you can replace it with onions too. Both yield good pudina rice, with different flavors.
• 2. You can even add vegetables like potato, peas, mushroom or baby corn too while frying the paste to perk up the nutrition.
• 3. You can add a handful of cashew nuts to the pot while frying the spices.

Recipe – 1 Preparation

1. Add ginger garlic, pudina, green chilies, coriander leaves, onions or coconut to a blender jar and make a fine paste, as fine as possible.

2. Pour oil to a pressure pan or cooker and heat it. Saute the dry spices till they begin to sizzle. you can even add nuts at this stage or fry and keep them aside for garnishing.

3. Add the paste and fry for 2 to 4 minutes, depending on the kind of your utensil. This is done to bring out the flavor of the mixture. Do not burn, stir well, it sticks too quickly. If using mix veggies, you can add them now and saute for 2 mins.

How to make pudina rice

4. Pour water and stir in the salt. bring it to a boil.

5. Add washed and soaked rice. Stir and cook until the water almost evaporates.

6. Close the lid when there is very little water left. Put on the flame to low.Cook for just 5 minutes and switch off. do not let the cooker whistle if using basmathi rice. if using regular rice, allow it to whistle once.

7. Lastly open the lid when the pressure goes down. A layer of mint and coconut is visible on top, you can sprinkle lemon juice and fluff up the rice gently.

Serve with onion raita or potato kurma or egg masala curry.

Lemon Pudina rice – Recipe 2

Lemon pudina rice recipe – one of the most easiest and flavorful rice that can be made for lunch box or for a quick meal. This is one of our favorites and preferred over the regular lemon rice. It can be served without any side. But to add little more nutrition to the meal, we accompany it with raita Raita or a quick mixed vegetable salad. Here are the ingredients to make

Ingredients

• 1 cup rice uncooked
• oil as needed
• 1 cup pudina leaves or mint leaves (tightly packed)
• 1 sprig curry leaves
• ½ tsp mustard
• ¾ tbsp chana dal (optional)
• ½ to ¾ tbsp urad dal (optional)
• 2 tbsp peanuts or cashews
• turmeric powder little
• lemon juice as needed(as much as we use for lemon rice)
• 1 broken red chili
• 2 green chilies (skip for kids or deseed use 1)
• olive oil (optional)
• ½ to ¾ tsp grated ginger (optional)

Instructions

1. Firstly pluck mint leaves, add them to a large pot filled with water. Rinse them well in more water. Drain them in a colander.
2. Soak rice for at least 15 to 20 minutes.
3. Cook it and set aside to cool completely. You can cook rice in electric cooker, pressure cooker or pot. The rice must be grainy and not mushy.
4. While the rice cooks, add the mint leaves to a small blender jar. Blend it little coarsely without adding water. Set this aside.
5. To make pudina rice, heat oil in a pan. Next add peanuts, chana dal and urad dal when they are lightly golden, add mustard and red chili. Lower the heat. When mustard splutters, add curry leaves, ginger, green chilies.
6. Ginger may get burnt, be quick. Add the pudina. Saute for 1 minute. Switch off the stove.
7. Add turmeric to the pan and add this to the cooled rice. Lastly sprinkle salt and squeeze off lemon all over the rice. Mix well. I also like to add some extra virgin olive oil before the rice is mixed.
8. lemon mint rice is ready.

Crystal salt can be sprinkled over the leaves and set aside for 10 minutes during cleaning. This helps to get rid of the pesticide residue on the leaves.
To skip blending the leaves in a blender, try to mince them as finely as possible

More Rice recipes
Pulao recipe
Veg biryani
Green peas pulao
Tawa pulao
Potato pulao

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