Recipe : Cracked Wheat and Spinach Pulao

Cracked wheat is such a healthy cereal to include in your meal plans. But not many people are familiar with this ingredient. Think of it as thick rawa and this might help you come up with dishes that you are already accustomed to cooking using rawa. Of course, rawa cooks a whole lot quicker than this. Some of you are familiar with couscous. Well, it’s very similar; but dalia is the natural untreated grain so it will take a lot longer to cook than couscous which has undergone some processing. Today I’m going to show you how to make a simple and wholesome cracked wheat pulao. I added spinach at the end. You can either omit that step or replace spinach with any other vegetable of your choice.

Ingredients:

• 2 tbsp ghee/oil
• 1 big onion, finely chopped
• 10-15 cloves of garlic, smashed
• 3 green chilies
• 2 med tomato, finely chopped
• 1/2 tsp turmeric powder
• 1 tsp garam masala powder or any curry powder
• 1 cup cracked wheat
• 1 tsp vinegar
• 1 big bunch spinach, roughly chopped
• water, double the quantity of the broken wheat…so 2 cups
• salt to taste

Instructions:

• Heat a pressure cooker and add the ghee followed by chopped onions, garlic, chilies.
• Once these are cooked, add the tomatoes and cook well.
• Add the spice powders and saute for a few seconds.
• Then add the cracked wheat and saute a few seconds more.
• Add the water, salt and vinegar.
• Close the lid with the pressure(whistle) and cook for around 4 whistles.
• Once the pressure is released naturally, open the lid and add the chopped spinach and stir a bit and shut the lid again. The steam is enough to cook the spinach.
• When you’re ready to serve, heat and serve. Any half cooked spinach will get cooked in a few seconds.
• Adjust your seasonings. Add lemon juice before serving and enjoy this dish hot.

I hope this post encourages you to try out cracked/broken wheat/dalia. There is another lovely dessert that can be made using broken wheat. I really like that one. My mum used to make it often when we were kids. I will post it soon. It’s very similar to Sheera, but of course with larger grain. We call it laapsi here in Maharashtra. More on that in another post.

Bon Appetit!

-RUELHA 
www.ruelha.com 
© Copyright Protected. All Rights Reserved.