Carrot Rice - Healthy and Tasty!

I had a whole bunch of carrots in hand and wanted to make something with it. Then dawned this idea of carrot rice. I am not a big fan of carrots in raw form but love it when it is cooked. I also love variety rice so thought to give this a try.

Ingredients:

1. Carrot (medium sized) - 2
2. Rice - 1 cup
3. Cashew - 5 to 6 roughly broken
4. Ginger garlic paste - 1&1/2 tsp
5. Onion - 1 slit lengthwise
6. Green chillies - 3 chopped
7. Pepper powder - 3/4 tsp
8. Coconut grated - 1 handful
9. Salt - as needed
10. Coriander - for garnishing

To temper:

1. Oil - 1&1/4 tsp
2. Ghee - 1/4 tsp
3. Bay leaf -1
4. Cloves -2
5. Cinnamon - 1 tiny piece

Method:

1. Cook rice separately. Grate the carrots and cut the onion.
2. In a kadai, heat oil and ghee and add the items under 'To temper' section.
3. Add the cashews and saute till slightly browned.

4. Add the ginger garlic paste and onions and saute till onions turn golden brown. Add in the green chillies and give a stir.

5. Add the freshly grated carrot and pepper powder,salt and saute for a while till the raw smell leaves. Add in the coconut at last and saute for 2 to 3 mins in low flame and switch off.






6. In a wide bowl, take rice and mix it with the above, garnish with coriander and serve hot with papad/raitha!.

Notes:

1. I have used pepper powder here. I heard in a TV show that pepper is very good for health and in olden days Indians never used chilli powder. There is an old saying in Tamil "Pathu milau irunthal pagaivan veetla kuda saapdalam", which means If you have 10 peppercorns in hand you can even eat in an enemies house. So, I wanted to use it wherever possibe. However, you can add chilli/smabhar powder instead.
2.If you dont want ghee, you can add oil instead. But the ghee gives a nice aroma.
3. You can also use leftover rice for this.