Fried rice with carrots, onions, chickpeas and Indian spices
6 servings
30 minutes
Fried rice with carrots, onions, chickpeas, and Indian spices is a fragrant and rich dish filled with the warmth of Eastern flavors. Its roots trace back to traditional Indian cuisines where spices play a crucial role in creating deep flavor combinations. Golden onions, sweet carrots, and tender chickpeas enhanced with turmeric and cumin give this rice a unique texture and richness of taste. An important element is the proper preparation of ingredients: jasmine rice adds an airy lightness to the dish while pre-soaked chickpeas become soft and tender. This dish is perfect as a standalone meal or as a side to vegetables or meat. Fried rice with chickpeas and Indian spices is a harmony of simple ingredients united by culinary mastery.
1
Soak the chickpeas. If not soaked before cooking, they will be quite tough. Soaking time depends on your patience, but it's best to let them sit in water for an hour or two. Ideally, soak them overnight for cooking the next day.
- Chickpeas: 100 g
2
Preparing chickpeas. It is not necessary to soak them for 12 hours or more. 95% of the grains achieve acceptable softness after just 1-1.5 hours of soaking. The remaining ones are easily distinguished by their wrinkled appearance.
3
Prepare the rice. Any long-grain rice is suitable for frying, but the type affects the preparation process. Jasmine rice is ideal for the dish — it just needs to be sorted to remove foreign objects and other grains if bought in bulk. Regular long-grain rice should be thoroughly rinsed of rice flour; otherwise, it will turn into porridge.
- Long grain rice: 400 g
4
Choosing rice. I highly recommend preparing this dish with jasmine rice, as it is almost perfect for such dishes and does not require mandatory rinsing before cooking.
5
Vegetable cutting. Onions and carrots should be washed and diced so that they look like vegetables in the finished dish, not mush.
- Onion: 200 g
- Carrot: 200 g
6
Roasting vegetables. Pour oil into the pan and heat it to working temperature. Then add onion and carrot to the pan. Fry until the onion turns golden. After that, add chickpeas, turmeric, and cumin and fry the mixture for about 30 seconds.
- Vegetable oil: 30 ml
- Onion: 200 g
- Carrot: 200 g
- Chickpeas: 100 g
- Turmeric: pinch
- Cumin seeds (jeera): pinch
7
We add rice. Pre-cooked long-grain and wild rice are added to the pan. At this stage, we fry the mixture, stirring actively, for about a minute. Now we need to add water. For the perfect result, about a liter of water is needed. We pour the water quickly and also mix the mixture quickly. At this moment, salt can be added to taste, and after leveling the mixture, cover it with a lid for 10-15 minutes.
- Long grain rice: 400 g
- Wild rice: 30 g
- Salt: 1 teaspoon
8
Don't miss the moment when the rice absorbs all the water and remove it from heat.