Vegetable Palou

Mama posing in Grandma's kitchen before she knew a lick about cooking.

Thanks to Anu I feel like I can take a start to this massive project. Maybe this will work best if people inspire me to respond to their requests for recipes. At least until I get into a routine of posting. The final dilemma I am facing in this is that I do not have photos to accompany the recipes. Everyone knows food art is what gets people's attention. Nevertheless, the primary purpose is to record Mama's recipes in easy to access electronic format for myself. We can build on bigger and better at a later stage. I should warn you that I plan on posting family size portions. I don't believe cooking for one is possible for Pakistanis. So please experiment with the recipes based on your hosting needs. The great thing about cooking (vs. baking) is that precision isn't necessarily perfection.

Ingredients List: 
2 cups Basmati (long grain) rice
1/3rd cup oil
1 medium onion diced or chopped depending on how you like onions
1 teaspoon ground garam masala
whole garam masala (1 cinnamon stick, 1 black cardommon, 2 cloves, .5 teaspoon of cumin seeds)
.5 ginger paste
.5 garlic paste (they also sell ginger-garlic paste in case you were interested and that would be good with one generous teaspoon)
2 cups of frozen green peas or green peas and carrots depending on your preference or what's in your freezer at the time (substitutes: chickpeas, frozen mixed veggies or canned veggies)
3.5 cups of water
2.5 teaspoons of salt

Directions: 

1. Wash your rice and run water through it until it is reasonably clear.
2. Leave rice to soak in water while you do all the other next steps (preferred at least 30 minutes)
3. Wash frozen veggies and drain.
4. Take a pot with a lid that is big enough to hold 2 cups of cooked rice and veggies (I know this seems simple and logical, but you'd be surprised the messes I've gotten myself into by being stingy with my pot size) and heat oil on medium
5. After oil seems warmed up, add chopped onion. Fry until slightly brown. (The browning will add color to the rice)
6. Add into the fried onions the following: first the whole garam masala, then the salt, then the ginger and the garlic paste.
7. You want to cook the above ingredients for a one minute, stirring quickly as you don't want the spices to burn, once everything is combined go to Step 8.
8. Add the water and the ground garam masala. Let water come to a rolling boil (think pasta if that helps).
9. Drain soaking rice. Once the water is boiling in the pot, add drained rice to the pot.
10. Add drained peas and carrots to the pot.
11. Watch the water level in the pot. Stir once or twice MAX to test the water level. Be gentle. You never want to break the rice, that is a sin for long grained rice.
12. Taste a kernel of rice when the water level is close to dried up. (Again think pasta, you taste the noodle for el dente right?)
13. Rice should be 90% cooked when tasted (else the heat was too high and you burned off all the water before the rice cooked). Put lid on the pot. Leave stove on low heat for 5 minutes. Promptly turn stove off - but do not lift the lid once it is on. Leave the stove off and the lid on for a good 10 minutes. Be patient people!
14. Take lid off, give a deep and wide stir to ensure rice is not stuck together.
15. Eat and be merry!  I can't tell you how many people this will serve because I don't know your portion size.  If you are Lahori, then this will serve 3-4 people.