Growing up, every Mom I knew had her own version of making vegetable pulav. Strangely enough, even though majority of the ingredients remained the same, each creation had a unique taste so different from the others. And even after sharing recipes, one could not produce the exact same taste as the other.
Each ingredient in the mix gives this a unique taste, so full of flavor. One different ingredient that I use in this Pulao/Pilaf is cream cheese. We happened to discover this accidentally. When MIL was here, she had suggested adding cream to mellow out strong flavors of chillies, ginger, garlic etc. However, we accidentally got cream cheese instead of cream, but yet boldly proceeded to use cream cheese and the final result was really delicious. Ever since, I have continued using cream cheese in making this Rice dish.
This is a neat dish as it is a one-pot dish and cleanup is a breeze. Just throw any vegetable from the fridge and that gives a unique flavor to the dish (done in the right way, of course)
Vegetable Pulao/Pulav with Cheese
Ingredients:
- 1 1/ cup regular sona masuri rice
- 1 cup of frozen vegetables like peas, corn, beans, carrot
- 1 small onion
- 1 big tomato
- ½ capsicum
- 1 ½ tbsp cream cheese (Use cream if this is not available)
- 1 tsp jeera
- 3-4 pulav leaves
- oil
Grind to paste:
- ¼ cup coconut shredded
- 4 garlic pods
- Ginger
- 4 cloves
- cinnamon
- 3-4 green chillies
Procedure:
- Heat oil in the cooker; add jeera seeds and the pulav leaves.
- Next add onion and sauté for a little while. Continue adding vegetables diced capsicum and frozen vegetables.
- Once they are cooked a little bit, add tomatoes and continue to stir.
- Next add the ground paste and continue to sauté until the raw smell of garlic goes away. Add little more oil if necessary.
- Next add the STAR ingredient, cream cheese and mix until it dissolves.
- Next add the rice, salt to taste, water and close the pressure cooker
- Cook until rice is done.
This is my entry for JFI-Rice
Very beautiful entry, pulav with cheese that something different.
I can imagine my cheese crazy son reading this recipe… He will not leave me till I make it for him. Sounds very tasty. Will try out for sure..
Rice dishes i love, with cheese it souds spêcial, even though i’ve never tried it with cheese.
that is cool.. cream cheese in rice.. nice
Cream cheese is a lovely twist in veg pulao.. nice recipe!
adding cream cheese to pulav….wow!!! What a great discovery…i have to try this recipe. Your Pulav looks irresistable!
Ruchii, Thanks for the nice comments.
Kamini, please do try and let me know.
Happy cook, thanks so much.
Rajitha, thanks. Cheese gives the pulav a kind of rich “Shahi” flavor.
Tee, thanks for all the wonderful comments.
Addition of cream cheese to veggie pulav is innovative. Loved that picture.
Wow great picture I bet it tasted lovely!
Hi, thanks for dropping by. This puluv with cheese is looking great. Thanks for the tip. Viji
What are pulav leaves?
Thanks Padma, Viji, Jeena for looking. Glad you all liked it.
Freida, Pulav leaves are Bay leaves.
hey nice pulav recipe tooo
thanks Sushma.
Hi,
Nice recipe. I have a doubt… What’s Cream Cheese? and where is it available ??
[...] what to make for dinner; it occurred to me that it had been a while since I made the delicious Cheesy Vegetable Pulav. I decided to make it that evening, but could not remember the exact ingredients that went into the [...]