Bagara Annam

The name itself says that this dish is from Hyderabad. You see I call myself a typical Hyderabadi because I still carry that typical language where we speak 3 different languages in one sentence etc...my friends in engineering used to just laugh at some of my words. Mostly Telugu and Urdu are mixed and formed into sentences. This one is called Bagara Annam, where Bagara as you know is seasoning in Urdu and then Annam is cooked rice in Telugu.

This is a common dish in Hyderabad for most festivals and get-togethers and even weddings. I guess this comes from Nizam zamana. You know they ruled Hyderabad for very long period and that's how those Biryanis, Mirchi Ka Salan form Hyderabad specialities.

To make this you'll need...

1 cup rice (basmati/sona masoori)
2 cups water1 cup fresh mint, chopped
1 medium onion, chopped
2 tbsp freshly made ginger-garlic paste
4 tbsp ghee or more
2 tbsp shah jeera (small jeera compared to cumin)
3 green chillies, optional
few dry fruits kaju, almonds, optional
1 or 2 dry bay leaves
1 cinnamon stick
salt to taste

1. Wash rice and keep it aside.
2. Heat the cooking pan and add ghee.
3. Add onions, shah jeera and cook until onions turn brown. You can add green chillies at this stage and keep mixing the whole thing for a minute.
4. Add freshly made ginger garlic paste and keep mixing for half minute. Don't let that
   stick to the pan.
5. Add mint and dry fruits and keep mixing for a minute. (Now you'll smell beautiful aroma in your whole kitchen). Add bay leaves and mix for just half a minute.
6. Add washed rice and mix the whole thing again (lot of mixing you see) and cook for a minute or so.
7. Add water and salt to the dish and cover it until cooked. You can even cook in a rice cooker, put the whole bagara in the rice cooker and add water and cook until done.

Things that make difference to this rice are fresh ginger garlic paste and fresh mint and ghee. At home when my mom cooks this, the aroma goes almost upto 2 or 3 houses in the neighborhood and my cousin's daughter comes running to see what's cooking in the kitchen. Goes well with the Capsicum Masala I posted below.

Try it out and see the difference.