Palak Pulao ( Spinach Rice)

During Pregnancy or even otherwise one is advised to eat a lot of green leafy vegetables to keep ourselves healthy and fit. Spinach is one such easily available green leafy veggie containing amino acids, iron, vitamin C and folic acid. But always make it a point to add lemon juice to the spinach dish since vitamin C content in the lemon juice helps the body to absorb the entire iron content from spinach.

As the richest source of folic acid, spinach is a very valuable food during pregnancy and lactation. Megaloblastic anaemia of pregnancy occurs because the mother is deficient in folic acid. This deficiency of folic acid occurs as this substance is required for the developing foetus. Regular use of spinach during pregnancy will help prevent the deficiency of folic acid. It will also prevent threatened abortion and accidental haemorrhage, deficient absorption of food by small intestine associated with lassitude i.e. tiredness, shorness of breath, loss of weight and diarrhoea. Spinach is also good source of nutrition for nursing or lactating mothers and improves the quality of their milk.

Sakshi my daughter used to have days like RED DAY, GREEN DAY, YELLOW DAY etc signifying the importance of that particular colour when she was in KG1 and she was supposed to wear that particular colour dress and talk a few words about that colour and to make everything nice I used to cook that colour lunch for her when she was back from school. This dish is one among them i made for green day.

Ingredients:
spinach - 1/2 bunch
basmati rice - 1 cup
water - 1-1/2 cups
onions - 1 medium
ginger-garlic paste - 2 tsp
green chillies - 4 slit
salt to taste
a knob of butter
oil or ghee - 2 tsp

Method:
wash and clean the spinach. chop them coarsely. Heat a knob of butter in a pan and add chopped spinach and fry till they shrink. let it cool. grind them to a smooth paste in a blender.


In the same pan heat oil/ghee and add chopped onions and fry till brown, then add ginger-garlic paste and slit green chillies. Fry for a minute. Now add ground spinach and mix well. cook for 2 minutes. Now add rice and saute for another 3 minutes. Now add 1-1/2 cups of hot water and salt and get to a boil. Cover the pan with a lid and cook for exactly 8 min on low flame without opening the lid to see if its cooked or not. Put off the flame after 8 minutes and forget it for another 5 minutes. Tranfer to the serving bowl and serve it hot with raitha of your choice.