Vegan Fijian Curry and Rice cooker Peas pulao

This is the fastest dinner I have ever made. I bought a couple of green plantains after reading a traditional Fijian curry recipe, one of my student’s mum’s signature dish. The combo of spices looked very much South Indian 🙂 So gave it a try. Also included is the recipe for a peas pulav which can be made in a rice cooker. Yeah, you read it right,  you don’t need the chunky pressure cooker to make this. And it is 2000 times better than what you get in Indian restaurants.

Fijian Curry

You need:

• Cumin seeds-1/2 tsp
• Fennel seeds-1/2 tsp
• Coriander seeds-1/2 tsp
• Poppy seeds-1/2 tsp
•  Cloves-2
•  Cinnamon-1 small stick
•  4 red chilies
•  4 garlic cloves
•  3 almonds
•  4 cashews
•  Coconut- depends on how coconuty you want the flavor to be
• One red onion-finely chopped
• Green plantain- peeled and diced into cubes
• Few green peas
• 2 tsp oil
• Mustard seeds-1 tsp
• Curry leaves-few

For the curry paste, oil spray the pan and add cumin seeds, fennel seeds, coriander seeds, poppy seeds, cloves, cinnamon stick, dry red chilies.Fry them until you get the aroma and blend with garlic, almonds,cashews into a fine paste. Sprinkle water if you want 🙂

Also blend some coconut to a fine paste.

In a pan, add oil, add mustard seeds, curry leaves, once they pop, add onion, fry until brown, add the plantain pieces, green peas, salt and fry for a couple of minutes, add the curry paste, fry well, more salt and 1/2 cup water and cover and cook until plantain is cooked (almost 90%) when you add the coconut paste in, more water if needed. Cover and cook until plantain is well done 🙂 That’s it.  🙂 Yum

Peas Pulav

This is the easiest rice you could do. Do you fancy the Indian peas pulav? No complex spices/No Masalas/No ginger/garlic. Yep Simple and a great accompaniment for any curries-Indian/not. For the rice(1.5 cup), you need to heat up 2 tsp of oil in a pan, add 2 cloves, cinnamon, 1 cardamom, a bay leaf and 2 green chillies slit and 3/4 of onion (very finely chopped), fry until transparent, add salt, frozen green peas(1/2 cup), few mint leaves( yep, this is important), more salt fry for a couple of minutes and add in rice, yeah uncooked rice and fry in oil for a couple of mins and transfer all the contents to a rice cooker. [Usually for a cup of rice, you add 2 cups of water :)] For this rice-1.5 cups, you add 2.5 cups water and 1 cup of light coconut milk. Add more salt, turn on the rice cooker and your end product will look like the picture below. And remember-NO long grained rice-Basmati is what you need 🙂 Oops, missed out cashews. Add them before onions for extra texture to your rice.

Your comment on photo will be very much appreciated 🙂

P.S: Thank you so much Celeste, for your food photography tips. Living in a shared accommodation, this is what I could do 🙂 You are a genius