Paneer Cilantro Pilaf

I personally love one pot meals. Pilaf or Pulav is one such versatile one pot meal which you could make it with almost any ingredient you have in your refrigerator or pantry. Today I wanted our humble fresh Cilantro leaves to play an important role in this dish. Mostly it serves its purpose so well as a garnish or a dip. But not today, here its an integral part of this Pilaf. Try it our for yourself and you will fall in love with it too. Also it makes me feel so good when working with fresh herbs.




Ingredients:

• 2 cups basmati rice
• 2 cups paneer diced
• 1/2 cup fresh cilantro finely chopped
• 2 tbsp freshly grated ginger
• 2 green chillies slit
• 2 tsp cumin seeds
• 2 bay leaves
• cinnamon stick
• 1 black cardamom
• 1 tsp turmeric powder
• 1 tsp red chilli powder
• 1 tsp cumin-cilantro powder
• 4 tbsp olive oil
• salt to taste

Preparation :

• Wash and Soak 2 cups of rice in 4 cups of water. Keep this aside for around 15-20 minutes.
• Heat some oil in a pan. Add cumin seeds, bay leaves, black cardamom and cinnamon stick. Add the grated ginger. Fry for a minute. Next add green chillies and chopped cilantro. Mix it well and add the diced Paneer and fry for about 2 minutes.

• Then add turmeric powder, salt, red chilli powder and cumin-coriander powder.
• Add rice with the water which we had kept aside earlier. Let this cook uncovered on medium flame. Now when you see that most of the water has dried up (like 85-90%) set the stove to the lowest flame and c0ver the pan with a lid and cook for about 5 minutes.
• Its ready to serve. Serve with Raita of your choice. The entire process should not take more than 35-40 minutes.
• This recipe serves 4.