Growing up, I wasn’t the best of friends with veggies, I still am not. But, as I’ve grown I’ve come to the realization of “You are what you eat” and it hit me that veggies are super important to stay healthy.

If you are from down south in India, the Malabar coast mainly, you’d know most of the vegetables are cooked with mustard, curry leaves, and coconut. Just writing about it makes me want to stop. This is something I’ve never really liked and don’t think I ever will. Sorry, not sorry!

So to fulfill my nutritious needs my mum would come up with amazing ways to get vegetables into my system. From yummy fried rice to mashed potatoes loaded with cheese-not the typical Indian way. And this is something I do too to make Amelia’s diet nutritious too.

This particular recipe that I’m sharing today, was and still is called “Steam rice” at home and I honestly don’t know why. Maybe in the real world, it is the actual name. MAYBE!

It a really rich yummy butter rice with a Chinese like gravy loaded with yummy chicken and vegetables. It’s a simple recipe but very flavourful. Hearty comfort food I say! And this paired with spicy chili chicken is the best combination, YUM YUM YUM!

Ps. I also sometimes enjoy the warm gravy as soup 🙂

INGREDIENTS:

For the gravy:

1 Chicken breast diced

1 Onion diced

1/2 Carrot diced

1/2 Green Capsicum diced

1/2 cube chicken stock

2 cups of water

1/2 tsp Garlic powder

1.5 tbsp Cornflour made into a slurry

Salt and Pepper to taste

Butter and oil to saute

Chopped spring onion for garnish

For the Rice:

1 cup Small Grain rice/ Jeera rice

2 cups of water

1 tbsp Butter

Salt to taste

NOTE:

• You can add any other vegetable you wish to. Cauliflower, Mushrooms, and Broccoli taste great.
• A cornstarch slurry is a mixture of a cold liquid with cornstarch. It is used as a thickening agent. A typical cornstarch slurry will consist of 2 parts cold water and 1 part cornstarch.
• You can also make the butter rice with long grain rice if you wish to. However, the small grain rice tastes yum.
• Chicken stock tastes best when cooked with bones, you can use that for the gravy. And if you are doing that, pan fry the chicken breast cubes with butter and add it.
• You can adjust the consistency of the gravy as per your liking.

METHOD:

For the gravy:

In a nonstick pot, heat some butter and oil and saute the onion till tender. Add carrot, chicken stock cube, salt, and pepper and saute well till tender. Finally add, Capsicum and saute. Keep aside.

In the same pot, add the diced chicken breast and 2 cups of water with salt, pepper and garlic powder and cook well. This makes the stock. To this add the sauteed vegetables and combine. Finally, add the cornflour slurry and let it thicken. Top with 1/2 tbsp butter (optional) and garnish with chopped spring onion.

For the Rice:

In a nonstick pot, heat some butter and immediately add the rice grains to avoid burning. Saute well. Add water and salt, bring to a boil on high flame. Lower the flame, cover with a lid and let the rice cook.