Soya Pulao-Tawa Soya Pulao-Kalimirchbysmita

Soya Chunks Pulao is a quick tawa pulao variant, that combines rice with vegetables and soya chunks cooked in spicy masala. A dish that can deceive your non-vegetarian friends with its meaty texture, unless you spill the beans out and tell them that the meatballs are in fact soya chunks.

Soya Chunks also known as Textured Vegetable Protein has been nothing short of sensation in the vegetarian food industry. Made from soya beans, these are nothing but defatted soy flour with the protein content being comparable to certain meats.

Before going any further with this post, a vital point that deserves to be mentioned is that soya comes with its own pitfalls that must be borne in mind before inculcating the habit of its daily consumption. Like any food product that must be had in moderation soya is not different. Had in moderation, you will be delighted with its positive impacts but if you tend to overeat these vegetarian meatballs, you get exposed to its disadvantages. Bearing that caveat in mind, let’s move on.

While growing up, I have eaten soya chunks on limited occasions. Mom would make it only as a last resort when she would have exhausted every vegetable in her pantry and she had very little time in hand to make anything elaborate on a weekday (she was a working woman). On such occasions, she would pull out these soya chunks and combine it with the universal ingredients of Indian cooking- Aloo, Tamatar i.e. Potato and Tomato making a curry preparation and serving us with steamed rice. That was the only way I had known of eating soya chunks until then for almost 2 decades.

Later, having migrated to Pune, where I was posted for my first job and began staying with my roommates, I learnt to use Soya chunks in many other forms- a thick gravy preparation, a stir fry preparation and a pressure cooker pulao. All these dishes were born out of compulsion- vegetables were out of stock in our pantry, most of the times and only ingredients that were available were veggies like Potato, Tomato, Onions and soya chunks. Necessity is the mother of all inventions and we were inventing dishes in our own capacity-some edible and some unpalatable.

Over the years as my skills evolved, I have added several interesting dishes made with soya chunks to my food-diary and Soya Tawa Pulao is one such interesting addition. Soya Tawa Pulao is a street food inspired dish that takes its cue from the pav bahji preparations made on the streets of Mumbai.

To start with, vegetables and soya chunks are cooked separately in boiling water and then soaked immediately in cold water bath to stop the cooking process. Soya balls are then squeezed to drain out the excess water. The cooked vegetables and soya chunks are then cooked in a spicy onion-tomato base which is spiced with pav bahji masala and other basic Indian spices (inspired from Pav Bhaji, remember?). Finally cooked rice is added to this preparation and tossed with the vegetables and masala. I prefer leftover rice for this recipe, as I like the rice grains to stay firm and separated. If you have cooked rice for this dish, then it is desirable to leave it in a refrigerator for 15 mins before you use it in Pulao.

Make this flavorful and delicious preparation of Soya Chunks-Tawa soya Pulao for your weekend family lunch and share your feedback with us in comment section below.

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