Priya Makes Shrimp Pulao with Quinoa

Whenever I cut onions, I'm like,

I hope that they don't include this footage

of me cutting onions.

I'm not gonna say anything cute or clever while I cut onions

so that this footage does not get used.

[energetic music]

When I come home from work and I'm feeling super lazy

and I don't want to dirty more than one pot,

quinoa shrimp pulao is what I make.

Pulao is a very basic Indian dish.

It's basically just rice that's been steamed

with a bunch of spices and vegetables.

It's sort of one of those back pocket dishes

that all Indian parents have.

In this recipe, which is from my cookbook Indian-ish,

come from my Aunt Sangeeta, who I call Sangeeta Mami.

Mami means wife of my mom's younger brother.

All of that in mami.

So, this is from her.

All right, so we're gonna chop our yellow onion,

red and green pepper, into just half-inch pieces.

I never cry when chopping onions.

It's just, I don't know, I don't know what happened.

Now we're gonna do our peppers.

So, you're cutting your pepper into just half-inch pieces.

This recipe is slightly controversial

in that Sangeeta Mami claims that she invented it,

but her husband Hamuns, who I call Gabboo Mama,

he claims that he invented it,

so I kinda want to find out who invented it for real.

I can't believe we have green bell peppers

in the test kitchen.

I was told on day one that I was at Bon Appetit

that the test kitchen doesn't do green bell peppers.

A raw red or gree bell pepper is the pits.

It's definitely not approved, but that's okay.

[Molly] But I'm sure your dish is gonna be great.

[laughing]

I mean, I kind of just like the green

and red color interplay in the dish.

The point of using peppers generally, is to add color,

crunch, a little bit of earthiness and spice.

Now we're just gonna chop up our cilantro.

So, we'll be using cilantro not as a garnish,

but to actually mix into the dish.

Sometimes, you want cilantro to add

just a shot of freshness, but sometimes you actually want it

to sort of function as a green in the dish,

and that's what it'll do in this pulao.

Ooh, it smells so good.

I love when you cut cilantro

and you just get hit with that smell.

I feel so bad for the people

who genetically think cilantro smells soapy.

Any of you those people?

Can you smell?

Does it smell like soap to you?

What kind of of soap?

Like a plain bar of soap?

[mumbling]

Odd. Okay.

All right, so now can I move over there and do the onions?

Any kind of large Dutch oven will work.

Something really sturdy.

Just like a big, big pot.

All right, we're gonna do medium-high heat.

And we're gonna add three tablespoons of olive oil,

or any other kind of neutral oil.

We're gonna add our onions, and these are gonna cook

until they get translucent.

I feel like I'm a broken record

when I say put onions in a bowl.

Cook 'til translucent.

Cook 'til translucent.

Cook 'til translucent.

This is at the start of many Indian dishes.

Okay, now I'm gonna see if Sangeeta Mami's awake.

I bet she's asleep.

Oh my God, she's awake!

Sangeeta Mami!

Oh, hey, Gabboo Mama.

Oh, thanks. [laughs]

So, I'm making quinoa shrimp pulao right now.

[Hamuns] All right.

You can see the onions are going.

Who invented quinoa shrimp pulao?

Was it Gabboo Mama or Sangeeta Mami?

[Sangeeta] Well, it's a combined effort

because I used to always make pulao,

and then once we got into the quinoa bandwagon,

we switched pulao to the rice.

Okay.

[Sangeeta] And then Hamuns added the shrimp part.

Gabboo Mama, do you concur?

What do you think?

Yeah, that's pretty accurate.

[mumbling]

Okay, okay, 'cause I heard there was some drama

over who actually invented quinoa shrimp pulao.

[Hamuns] Yeah, we're always fighting this.

[laughing]

We're filming right now.

See, look, you're on camera.

[mumbling]

All right, I'm gonna get back to making this,

but I'll talk to you guys a little later.

[Hamuns] All right, all the best.

All right, see ya.

Bye.

Wow, all the way from Morocco, folks.

All right, we're gonna reduce our heat to low,

and then here, we've got serrano chilies,

garlic, ginger, turmeric.

These are our main seasoning agents.

We're just gonna add them all

and just cook 'em off for a little bit.

This is two serranos.

It looks like a lot, but I promise you can handle it.

I feel like we're all so afraid of adding heat

and spice to dishes, but we can handle more than we think.

We're just gonna basically cook this for a couple minutes,

just until you can really smell the garlic and the ginger,

you're getting those aromatics,

and then we'll move on to the next step.

It's been really funny to our families

seeing turmeric become this huge health trend.

Especially turmeric lattes.

In India, they're just haldi doodh,

and haldi doodh is given to kids when they're feeling sick,

and it's something you actively hate.

Turmeric is not a flavoring agent, really,

in and of itself in Indian cooking,

but it does add this sort of underlying earthiness

and color to Indian dishes.

Smells really good.

Can you smell from over there?

So, now we're gonna add our shrimp.

You can get them with the tails removed.

That's how my aunt and uncle do it.

With the tails on, it just looks a little prettier.

We're just gonna stir for about five minutes on low heat.

You're gonna want to coat the shrimp

with all of your aromatics, just like so.

Wow, I'm getting hot.

Maybe I should've worn my sleeveless jumpsuit.

It would've been more breathable

than this very much not breathable Uniqlo sweater.

There we go.

Here you can see the shrimp

is starting to get a little pinkish now.

The first time I made this dish, I was like,

I'm literally gonna have raw shrimp, but it cooks.

Have faith.

Have faith on the low heat method.

[laughs] I'm so hot.

All right, we are getting there.

Look, our little shrimpies are getting pink.

We'll add the peppers and the salt,

and then we'll mix it all together

until the shrimp is cooked.

So, if not everything is perfectly pink, don't worry.

That's how it's supposed to be.

So, now we're gonna add our red and green peppers,

and then we're gonna add our salt.

Gonna fold that all together.

So basically, with these peppers,

you don't want them to get totally soggy.

You want them to maintain a little bit of their crunch.

This is looking good.

It's like a nice arm workout, too,

'cause you're constantly stirring.

So, I'm a lefty, but when you guys have righty cooks

do you all have to film from this side?

How does that work?

[mumbling]

You're always like this?

So, it's a benefit that I'm a lefty--

[Male] Yeah, it's a benefit.

Shooting out.

For once, me being a lefty works.

Are there any other test kitchen people who are lefties,

or is it just me?

[Male] Clara's left-handed.

Clara's a lefty.

Is she the only one?

The only one.

Amazing.

I feel like Clara's like a good lefty ally to have.

So, now look, our shrimp is pink, our peppers are soft.

I'm just gonna give one of these a little,

yeah, these are great.

You can hear the crunch.

If you can hear the crunch, you're good.

Oh, a little spice.

So, now we're gonna turn the heat up to high.

We're gonna fold in our quinoa.

Cooked quinoa.

I make my quinoa in a microwave, actually.

Ratio of one cup of quinoa to 2 1/2 cups of water.

Just rinse your quinoa to remove

any of that bitter outer coating, and it works beautifully.

So, once things are looking nice and, ooh, oops.

You can just eat what you drop.

So, now we're gonna add our cilantro.

Again, we're stirring this in, not using it as a garnish.

It's playing the role as sort of a green.

And then we're gonna add our lime juice.

If you're not a lime juice person,

you can just add a little bit.

But I'll probably add a little bit more.

So, at this point now you just want to taste your quinoa.

Make sure your salt, your lime, your cilantro

is the level you want.

Mm.

I'm gonna do a touch more salt, a touch more lime juice.

This is salt, right?

Yeah.

I'm always afraid that it's accidentally a pot of sugar.

Now a little more lime juice.

Oh.

These limes are really not juicy.

Ah.

So, now you'll notice that the quinoa is a little bit gooey.

At the end of cooking the dish

I like to just let it sit for 15 minutes,

and that'll sort of get rid of some

of the liquid that's here,

and you'll be left with a really fluffy,

nice, little grain bowl.

All right, our quinoa shrimp pulao

has been hanging out for about 15 minutes.

It's gotten a little bit drier, less gooey,

and now we're gonna just move it over and plate.

[mumbling]

I'm nervous to feed this to other members

of the test kitchen 'cause it has green bell peppers in it.

Will I convert them?

Okay, these are not beautiful bowls, but they'll do.

Gaby, do you want to try some quinoa shrimp pulao?

Gaby wants to try it.

I'm starving.

Wait, let me drop the banana.

[Priya] Okay, finish your banana.

So, what am I trying?

Okay, so this is quinoa shrimp pulao.

It's made with quinoa.

We add a little bit of shrimp, ginger,

garlic, onion, turmeric.

Smells delicious.

This lime has like, no juice.

I know!

These limes are not juicy at all!

Okay, I'm going in.

Just go in.

Get a shrimpy piece.

Well you can...

Mm, spicy.

Yeah.

It's got two chilies.

Ooh, but it's a nice heat.

It doesn't power--

[Priya] It's like a fruity heat.

Yeah.

And the shrimp, because you cook it low and slow,

it's not rubbery.

No, but thank you.

[Priya] Thank you, Gaby.

May I take it, or do I need to share?

You want to try some?

Okay, there's green bell peppers,

which I feel so self-conscious that,

that's not a test kitchen-approved ingredient.

It's definitely not approved, but that's okay.

[laughing]

I got the silent eating and thumbs up from Andy.

I think that's a good thing.

So, this is the dish that I would serve

to any and every quinoa skeptic out there.

You can really make it your own.

If you don't like shrimp, you can sub in shredded chicken,

you can sub in tofu.

Just any kind of crunchy vegetable, a protein,

a grain, and then this delicious sofrito of ginger,

and garlic, and onion, and you've got a pulao.

That's kind of the beauty of Indian cuisine.

It's very mix and match.

The possibilities are endless.

Mm.

[Male] Pastry chefs back then must've been ripped.

I think that they must have been ripped,

'cause yeah, like hand-whipping cream.

When I lived in France when I was studying abroad,

my host father would make chocolate mousse from scratch,

and he would just literally lift up his sleeve,

put all the ingredients,

and just go like this for like, 10 minutes,

and it would be done.

I was like, how the [beeps] do you do that?

Oh, sorry.

I mean, how the heck do you do that?