Monday, September 15, 2008

Recipe: Pulao Rice

This is a rice cooker recipe. My rice cooker knows when to stop cooking, and then just keeps the rice hot until I'm ready for it. My friend taught me I could leave it in finished-cooking-keeping-warm mode 24 hours, as long as the bottom of the bowl has a good untouched layer of rice in it. Sometimes that comes in handy.

Yes, I use real saffron. No turmeric in this recipe. I got a big ole 1-ounce jar at Costco, so now I might as well use it as hoard it.

Into the rice cooker put:
1.5 cups basmati rice
3 cups water
2 Tablespoons of butter
3 green cardamons
2 cloves
3 peppercorns
and a pinch of SAFFRON



Turn the rice cooker on. Assuming it has keep-warm-after-cooking mode, come back to eat whenever you like, sometime in the next 1-25 hours. But pick out the cloves and peppercorns and cardamons when you open the pot--you don't want your kid biting into that.

Excellent with Tomato Curry.

2 comments:

Millie said...

What if you don't use a rice cooker? Do you just put the stuff in with the rice at the beginning?

Johnna said...

Yes, without the rice cooker, you could cook your rice as usual, just adding the spices.

Or, you could do it right:

1. rinse your rice and drain it.

2. Put your butter into the saucepan and melt it. Add the cardamoms, cloves, and peppercorns. Stir fry for one minute. This pulls all that wonderful spice out into the oil.

3. Put your dry, uncooked rice in the saucepan, and stir fry further for 2 minutes. Yes, that technique sounded crazy to me when I first learned it (for Spanish cooking) But the effect is fabulous!

4. Add the water, salt, and saffron to the rice mixture, and cook like rice. Bring it to a boil, then cover the pan, reduce the heat, cook until the water is absorbed. That takes about 20 minutes, right?

5. it's done. take it off the stove.