KASHMIRI PULAO

Today we had Pani Puri program at our home. I thought of having rice as a side dish as well because unfortunately I cannot eat lots of Pani Puri's at one time. I was thinking of preparing some different rice dish. Basically I wanted to avoid very spicy and tangy biryani sort of rice dish. Suddenly, Kashmiri Pulao clicked in my mind. I never made it but prepared Kashmiri Dum Aloo. Searching on net doesnt give me the sort of taste which I was looking for this Pulao.

Finally, I need to settle down with mix and match of various recipe and prepare my own Kashmiri Pulao. But, belive me this is no different from Authentic Kashmiri Pulao. I kept original essence of Kashmiri rice and other kashmiri dishes while preparing my own recipe.

I hope this opens up your taste buds... :-)

History: This rice is from the Northern Indian state of Kashmir. Although it is a frozen region high in the Himalayas, Kashmir lies along the ancient overland trade routes between Persia and India, and the cuisine is famous for using a huge assortment of nuts and dried fruits from all over Central and Western Asia.

Ingredients
1/2 kilogram basmati or other long-grained rice, cooked and drained
3 tablespoons ghee or butter (If ghee or butter is too heavy then Oil can be used), to taste.
12 leaves of mint leaves
1 cinnamon tree leaf (or substitute 2 bay leaves)
A small piece of nutmeg
5 cloves
4 pods green cardamom
1 small onion, sliced thin
2 green chillies, split lengthwise
1 1/2 teaspoons ginger-garlic paste (1 part ginger to 1 part garlic)
100 grams dried dates, pitted and sliced thin
50 grams white raisins
50 grams cashew nuts
50 grams pistachio nuts
50 grams almonds, blanched and diced
pinch of salt
3-4 strands saffron
3 tablespoon milk
25 grams Tutty Fruity
1 Chopped Apple.

Procedure
Wash the rice and soak in water for 20 minutes.
Cook rice with Mint Leaves, Nutmeg, Bay Leaves, Sugar and Salt.
Heat ghee or butter in a large wide pan or wok.
Add dry spices: cloves and cardamom.
Add sliced onion and fry until it just begins to turn brown.
Add ginger-garlic paste and chillies and fry for about 1 minute before tossing in all of the dried fruits and nuts (except Tutty Fruity).
Add salt to taste.
Turn the flame down to low.
Soak the strands of saffron in milk, mixing until the milk turns orange.
Pour the cooked rice into the pan and sprinkle the saffron-milk on top.
Stir very carefully so as not to break or mash up the rice grains, mixing the flavourings and saffron colour in uniformly and heating the rice.
At the end decorate rice with Tutty Fruity and Chopped Apple Pieces.
Optional adding panneer fried in ghee to the pulao makes it taste better. But this will make dish a bit heavy.