15-minute Shrimp, Vegetable and Green Lentil Pulao (Instant Pot)
This Shrimp, Lentil and Vegetable Pilaf is easy, quick and reasonably wholesome. It is cozy comfort food. A very flexible dish! I love the idea of double carbs, hence the rice and potatoes. You can double the lentils and skip the rice. Or the potatoes. Add more veggies and keep this totally vegan by skipping the shrimp. It is all good. This dish has the wholesomeness of khichri with the elegance of pulao. The only qualifier for the veggies is they should be very finely chopped, so that they blend into the dish. In this version, I added loads of green beans.
My Story of 15-minute Shrimp, Vegetable and Green Lentil Pulao
My new obsession is the rice feature on the instant pot. In fact, it is right up there with the steam feature.
If you are a Bengali like me, odds are you will be very finicky about the texture of your rice. The general setting of the rice in the instant pot is a little too soft for me. This time during my shopping escapades I found the best red skinned potatoes from Melissa’s Produce and add some in this dish for good measure.
And yes, this dish takes about 15 minutes of hand-on time and maybe 30 minutes or so in total. It is perfect and complete by itself. My husband likes to add in some pickle and yogurt.
I call this a pulao, as I do not layer the dish like a traditional biriyani. Having said that, the layering concept is mostly from Northern India. South Indian variants often skip the layering and for that matter often skip the fuss with multiple colors. Of course, it is another story that my husband calls this a khichari. Here is a stove top version of a shrimp biryani that I had posted a few moons ago.
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A hearty one dish meal, made in my electric pressure cooker, This recipe of course is very easily adaptable for the stove top.
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup green french lentils
- 2 tablespoons oil
- 1 large red onion, thinly sliced
- 1 tablespoon freshly grated ginger
- 1 teaspoon minced garlic
- 1 teaspoon ground coriander
- 2 pods green cardamom
- 1 stick of cinnamon
- 2 to 3 cloves
- 1 cup Basmati rice
- 1/2 teaspoon turmeric
- 1.5 teaspoons salt
- 2 red skinned potatoes, quartered
- 1 cup of green beans, finely chopped
- 1/2 cup green peas (I used frozen)
- 1/2 pound medium sized shrimp (about 15 to 20 shelled and de-veined)
- 2 tablespoons fresh lime juice (about 1/2 fresh lime)
- Chopped cilantro to garnish
Instructions
- Soak the lentils in 1 cup of hot water for 30 minutes or longer. I do this just before I start gathering other things and prepping.
- Turn the instant pot into a saute setting and add in the oil.
- Heat the oil and add in the onion and saute for about 5 minutes.
- Add in the ginger and garlic and cook for another minute.
- Drain and add in the lentils, the cardamoms, cinnamon, cloves and the Basmati rice with the potatoes, green beans, peas and the shrimp
- Add in 1 and a quarter cup of water.
- Set the instant pot on rice mode and release the steam after 10 minutes.
- Remove the rice and sprinkle with the lime juice and the chopped cilantro.
- Serve hot.
Notes
To adapt this for the stove top, simply increase the water to 2 cups and cook on the stove top for 18 minutes.