Vegan MoFo Day 26: Vegetable Pilau

All the MoFo cooking must be getting to me, because today I found myself in M&S buying tarka dhal and bombay aloo for my dinner tonight, after I realised that they are inadvertently vegan. Their rice however is not vegan so I decided to make some spicy vegetable pilau to go with it.
 
Spicy Vegetable Pilau
225 g/1 cup basmati rice, washed, covered in water and soaked for half an hour
1/2 tsp cumin seeds
1 Tbsp sunflower oil
2 bay leaves
1 clove
1 onion, finely chopped
1 carrot, finely diced
50 g/1/3 cup frozen sweetcorn
50 g/1/3 cup frozen peas
25 g/1/4 cup cashew nuts, lightly toasted
475 ml/2 cups water
1/4 tsp ground cumin
1/4 tsp garam masala
salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

In a large frying pan, saute the cumin seeds for 2 minutes, add the bay leaves, cardamoms and clove and saute for another 2 minutes. Add the onion and carrot and saute until softened. Stir in the drained rice, sweetcorn, peas and cashew nuts and cook for a further 2 minutes. Add water, ground cumin, garam masala, salt and pepper, bring to the boil, cover, turn down the heat and simmer for around 15 - 20 minutes until all the liquid has been absorbed. 

I served mine with the tarka dal and bombay aloo, plus a vegetable pakora, onion bhaji and vegetable samosa and a couple of poppadums.