I learnt this delicious rice recipe from Rajesh, a dear friend and colleague of the last 28 years.
A word about Rajesh: He is a gent of many talents. He cooks. He takes care of a squad of strays and his pet parrots Rio and Zazu. He is his Mumbai building society's secretary. He shoots pics and videos, reports, writes and designs for Rediff. Cars, after Sunny Deol, are his first love and he reviews them for Rediff too.
He is a whiz at anything technical. He is someone I go to -- as do my girls, who have him on speed dial -- with the strangest of problems because, above all, he is extremely helpful.
Rajesh is also charming. That, and because he is so helpful, gets him places big time. Like he recently helped Aamir Khan light the candles on his birthday cake and the first piece of cake the actor gave was to Rajesh.
The story I will always remember about Rajesh happened maybe 10, 11 years ago. Rediff then owned and edited India Abroad, the oldest and foremost newspaper for Indian Americans.
India Abroad organised, yearly, the glittering India Abroad Person of the Year gala in New York, and a team of us from the Bombay office, including Rajesh, would travel to New York to put together the event.
On our flight back to India, that year, after the event, at JFK, one of our colleagues, Suchitra (name changed) was in a wheelchair. (She had been crossing 33rd Street and tripped in a surprisingly deep-ish pothole and sprained her foot badly.)
At the airport, I had extra luggage, as usual, and was fiddling around, adjusting my bags and I gave my passport to Suchitra to hold for me. Rajesh was checking our group in and had the balance passports with him including Suchitra's.
Suddenly -- before any of us could react quick enough, and almost in slow motion -- a wheelchair attendant whisked Suchitra away through passport control and security. She realised, belatedly, that she had my passport, which the attendant took from her and gave the immigration agent.
Those were the days when everyone was paralysed with fear when it came to interacting with the intimidating TSA agents. By then Suchitra realised she was being taken through with the wrong passport but thought the TSA would pick it up and was too nervous to say anything.
Suchitra and I look nothing alike and our names are as different as chalk and cheese. But no, the TSA did not notice the difference in faces or names (when they asked Suchitra to say hers and spell it) and she went sailing through with my passport and was parked somewhere on the other side of the airport.
I had to go through immigration with only Suchitra's passport with me and was petrified that the TSA would think we did this deliberately for some sinister reasons and would never believe our wild and improbable story.
But Rajesh, in his usual calm, kind way, took charge of the situation and assured us he would solve it.
We didn't believe him, because I mean this was The TSA.
But he went off somewhere and disappeared looking for a TSA supervisor, while we all waited anxiously. Sure enough, he returned 10 minutes later with a smiling senior TSA officer, who Rajesh had charmed to bits.
She realised that this was actually a terrible mistake from the TSA's side and was apologising profusely on behalf of her staff and promised to locate Suchitra and my passport and sort the matter immediately, which they did. Rajesh won the day.
Anyway let's get to the recipe, which uses both purple and green cabbage, lightly cooked Chinese-Indian style, making it crispy and yum. It's good for a light lunch.
Rajesh's Cabbage Szechuan Rice
Serves: 2
Ingredients
- 1¼ cup uncooked basmati rice
- 1½ cups water
- 10 garlic pods, minced or finely chopped
- 1-inch piece ginger, grated
- 10 beans, first split lengthwise in half and then cut into 2-inch pieces
- ½ large carrot, peeled, julienned.
- 1½ cups julienned purple or red cabbage
- ¾ cup julienned green cabbage
- 3 stalks spring onions, greens and white bulbs cut separately into 2-inch pieces
- ½ medium-sized onion, sliced
- 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil + 1 tbsp extra to add to the rice
- 2 tbsp soy sauce
- 1 packet (40 gm) Ching's Szechwan chutney or 2 tbsp any Szechuan sauce
- 1 tsp salt or less (the soy has salt too)
Method
- Boil the basmati rice with 1½ cups water in a heavy-bottomed saucepan or a kadhai over low heat till just done and the water is absorbed.
Add 1 tbsp olive oil and lightly toss with a fork and keep aside. - In a bowl, make a serving salad by tossing the green cabbage with ½ cup of the purple cabbage and the sliced red onion.
Keep aside. - Heat the remaining 2 tbsp olive oil in another saucepan or a kadhai, over medium heat, and add the beans.
Fry for 1 to 2 minutes and then add the garlic and the ginger.
Add the rice, soy, Szechuan paste, salt and lightly toss and fry 4 to 5 minutes more.
Then add the julienned carrot, spring onion whites, the remaining 1 cup of purple cabbage and take off heat.
Toss lightly and then add the spring onion greens. - Serve hot with the salad of green and purple cabbage and onions.
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