Lilva Pulao
If you like flavors of rice+cilantro, then you will love this dish. Because its packed up with cilantro flavor.
I learnt this dish from someone I know personally, and then added my twist to it. It super simple, quick and very filling because it has rice in it. You can serve it with yogurt, Gujarati Kadhi, or raita. It goes well with almost anything or just by itself.
Lilva often refers to the fresh flat beans in this recipe commonly known to Gujarati cuisine as Surti Papdi. They look somewhat like peas in their pod. The pod of Surti papdi is flat unlike peas. They are mildly sweet when they are fresh. The other fresh beans I have used are called Tuver or Toor known as pigeon peas in English. In India, these are seasonally available. But, luckily for us in USA, we get them in the frozen sections. So, you can make this dish any time of the year. If you do not have access to these beans, feel free to only use peas. Just compensate the quantities. The beans are freshly available at this time of the year in USA.
The other component of the dish is the green cilantro chutney. You cannot substitute anything else if you do not like cilantro. I feel like you can make it with spinach or may be another herb. But I strongly prefer it with cilantro chutney. Making chutney is very easy and you can make bigger quantity and use it for later. That’s what I like to do. Not only that, if you have leftover cilantro chutney and want to put it to good use, this is the recipe for you.
I used pressure cook for this recipe. But, if you have an instant pot, go for it. I have tried making it in instant pot too. It works perfectly fine. You want to make sure, whatever you use the rice should be cooked well and the grains should be separate once it is cooked. I always recommend soaking the rice. It softens up the grain and cooks faster and better.
Check out the recipe for the Lilva Pulao!
Lilva Pulao
Ingredients
- 1 cup rice soaked for few minutes
- ½ cup cilantro chutney
- 2 tbsp oil/ghee
- 1 tsp cumin seeds
- 1 tsp turmeric powder
- 1.5 tsp garam masala
- ½ cup Surti Papdi/Lilva green flat beans
- 1/2 cup Tuver green pigeon peas
- ½ cup green peas fresh or frozen
- 1 medium potato, chopped
- 1 small onion, chopped
- salt to taste
- 1/3 cup fresh shredded coconut frozen
- 2 tbsp cashewnuts
- Cilantro and lemon to garnish
Instructions
- Wash and soak the rice for few minutes in water. If you do not have cilantro chutney ready, then prepare it. Check out my chutney recipe for it.
- Heat up ghee in a pan or pressure cooker on a medium heat.
- Once the ghee heats up, add the cumin seeds.
- As they start spluttering, add the cashews roast them for few minutes. Add lilva, tuver, peas, chopped potato and onions along with spices and salt. Remember chutney also has salt in it.
- You can add some coconut right now and leave some for garnish. Or add everything right now.
- Add the rice and chutney along with some water. The amount of water depends on the method of cooking. If you are using pressure cooker then, add water just half an inch above the rice approximately 3/4-1 cup.
- If you are using the pot method, you will require more water approximately 2 cups.
- Pressure cook it for 10 minutes for two whistles. Let it rest for 5 minutes before opening the lid of the pressure cooker. Fluff the rice with a fork.
- Garnish it with quite essential cilantro and put a lemon wedge on the side.
- Serve it with any kind of raita, yogurt or just as it is.
Notes
XO, Devangi