Jeera fried rice with Tangy Potato fingers

So here goes... am back in Pune for sometime, and raring to go on the microwave cooking front. I have my niece with me for a few days, who is sure to appreciate my culinary attempts (irrespective of the final output!!).

So the countdown begins. We started the first day with an interesting recipe we found in the cook book which came along with our microwave. This turned out to be a decent accompaniment for Jeera rice.

As the name indicates, we peeled and cut the potatoes into french fry like fingers and microwaved them for 6 minutes. While the potatoes were kept aside to cool, we prepared the ingredients for the gravy. It required one chopped spring onion, chopped green chillies (as per your taste), 7 flakes of garlic (chopped again). Heat some butter in a microwave safe bowl for one minute, then add the above chopped stuff into it and heat it for 2 minutes. Toss the potatoes into this mixture, add a ladle of tomato sauce, one (or even two if you like it to be more soya saucy) ladle of soya sauce and one ladle of vinegar. Take a small cup, and put two heaped teaspoons of cornflour into it. Pour half a cup of water and mix the cornflour well. Pour this mixture into the potatoes. Add some pepper and salt to taste and toss them well together. Microwave the above mixture for 4 minutes and allow to stand in that heat until your jeera rice is ready!

The jeera rice was a simple one. We fried mustard, jeera and cashewnuts (till golden brown), added onions and sauted till transparent. In went some washed frozen peas and then the basmati rice (which was kept soaked in water for half an hour). Add some water (we used a proportion of 1:1 for rice and water), and allow to pressure cook until one whistle. Simmer for 5 minutes and then allow to stand.

Oh yes.. I forgot the salt! Before pressure cooking the rice, add salt to taste.

There you go - you now have a tangy flavoured potato fingers, to go along with the simple jeera rice.