Wash the rice in plenty of water and drain. Soak this in fresh water for about 20 to 30 minutes.
Drain and keep aside.
Prepare the marinade paste.
Add the mint leaves, coriander leaves, ginger, garlic, jalapenos and coconut in a blender jar.
Make into a fairly fine paste.
Add this paste along with the dry spice powders, yogurt and salt to the chopped baby corns.
Mix well and keep aside for about 10 to 15 minutes.
Once the rice and baby corns are ready to be cooked, heat a pressure pan on medium high heat.
Add the oil and ghee and once hot, stir in the dry whole spices (clove, cinnamon, Marathi moggu, star anise, jeera, saunf, bay leaf and cardamom.
Stir for a few seconds till you get a good aroma. Do not let it burn.
Tip in the sliced onions and sauté on medium till soft and light golden brown.
Once the onions are soft and brown, add the marinated babycorns and stir gently.
Cook and fry on medium heat till the babycorn is slightly cooked and you can see oil separating slightly. This takes about 2 to 3 minutes.
Stir in the drained rice, green peas and salt to taste and mix gently.
Keep frying this mixture on medium low for about 2 to 3 minutes, till all the moisture content has evaporated and each grain of rice is glistening and well coated with the oil and spices!
Add 1 ½ cups to 2 cups of hot water (I used 1 ½ cups), depending upon the type of rice used (you can rinse the bowl in which the baby corns were marinated and the blender jar in which the chutney was made with water and use this along with plain water to make 1 ½ cups for cooking the pulao).
Stir gently, taste for salt and close the pressure pan with the weight on.
Heat on high, and after 1 whistle, lower the heat to low and cook for 5 more minutes. You can also cook on high for 2 to 3 whistles and turn the heat off.
Let the pressure release on it's own. Once the pressure is released completely, open the pressure pan, and gently fluff up the pulao with a fork.
Transfer to a dish or bowl, garnish with coriander leaves or mint leaves and serve this spicy, tasty and flavorful baby corn chettinad pulao with onion raita (mix yogurt with sliced onions and salt), boondi raita (season plain yogurt with salt and powdered sugar according to your taste and stir in fried boondis just before serving) or just plain yogurt along with potato chips or a salad!!
You can cut baby corn any way you want, either vertically into long slices or chop them into smaller pieces.
If you are short on time, this recipe can be prepared without soaking the rice and marinating the baby corn. Just mix the marinade into the baby corn, wash the rice well and proceed to make pulao.
The same method can be followed to make chicken pulao, mushroom pulao, paneer pulao, cauliflower pulao etc.
If you do not have fresh or frozen coconut, you can substitute with coconut milk.
