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Bisanti Pulao

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Wow! Are you in for a treat with this one.

Bisanti Pulao is a luxurious buttery fragrant rice dish for very special occasions. Laced with toasted cashews and buttery sultanas, it really is a rice fit for royalty.

Traditionally, this is made sweet to the taste and uses 2 - 3 tablespoons of sugar in the recipe.

But not Nutty!

Nope, we wouldn't put that much sugar in rice pudding! And, I thought there's going to be plenty of delicious sweetness brought by sultanas plumped up with buttery ghee.

So we left the sugar out and it tasted just divine.

It pairs perfectly with slow cooked Kosha Mangsho, a very special lamb curry with plenty of oomph, both in heat and complex flavour.

This pulao can handle the heat!

Turn that extra special curry into a restaurant quality dinner at home with this Bisanti Pulao.

Click the Method tab below to see a step-by-step guide on how to make Bisanti Pulao along with some pictures as a guide.

dome-of-bisanti-pulao

ingredients

Here's what you need :¬)

serves 2 - 3

  • 1 cup Basmati rice
  • 4 Tbsp ghee
  • 1 tsp grated ginger
  • 1 tsp turmeric
  • 1 tap table salt
  • ¼ cup raw cashew nuts
  • ¼ cup sultanas
  • 2 bay leaves
  • 5 green cardamoms
  • 2 cassia bark or cinnamon sticks
  • 5 cloves
  • 2 cups hot water*
  • 1 tsp garam masala

* Exactly twice the volume of water to rice

method

There are a few stages in creating this delicious rice, but there's nothing too tricky as long as you have everything ready to go.

So don't panic!

You'll need a pan with a tight fitting lid to cook the rice in.

Then briefly, this is what we need to do:

  • Wash & dry the rice.
  • Marinate the rice in ghee, ginger & salt.
  • Fry nuts and sultans in ghee.
  • Toast whole spices in ghee.
  • Fry the rice in ghee.
  • Add water and simmmer the rice for 10 mins.
  • Add nuts, sultans and garam masala & rest for 10 mins.

So get all the ingredients out and put them into pors in the order that we are going to use them.

ingredients
ingredients-in-jars
ingredients in order of use
ingredients

Prepare the rice

  1. Wash 1 cup of rice until the water runs clear
  2. Drain the rice and set on a cloth to air dry for about 20 mins.

I tipped the drained rice onto one side of the cloth to get most of the water out and moved it to the other side to dry completely. This seemed to work ok for me.

air drying rice
rice-drying-on-cloth

marinate the rice

  1. Carfully mix
    • 1 cup rice.
    • 1 Tbsp ghee.
    • 1 tsp grated ginger.
    • 1 tsp turmeric powder.
    • A pinch of the salt.
    being carful not to break the grains.
  2. Let it stand for 30 mins.
rice marinating
rice-marinating

toast nuts & sultans

  1. While the rice is marinating gently toast the nuts and sultanas in ghee on a low to medium heat unitl the sultanas plump up and the nuts turn golden brown.
    • 1 Tbsp ghee
    • ¼ cup raw cashew nuts
    • ¼ sultanas
toast nuts & sultanas
plump-fruit-and-nuts-toasted
  1. Remove the nuts and sultanas then set aside until needed.
toasted nuts & sultanas
fruit-and-nuts-toasted-on-plate

cook the rice

  1. Tip the rest of the ghee into the pan used to cook the nuts and gently fry the whole spices for 2 - 3 mins:
    • 2 bay leaves
    • 5 green cardamoms - broken slightly
    • 2 cassia bark or cinnamon sticks
    • 5 cloves
gently fry the whole spices
whole-spices-cooking-in-ghee
  1. Add the marinated rice
  2. Gently coat the rice with ghee until glossy
add marinated rice
rice-added-to-whole-spices
  1. Add hot water & bring to the boil.
  2. Simmer with the lid on for 10 mins.
    • 1 cup hot water.
    • Remainder of 1 tsp salt
add water & bring to a boil
rice-and-spices-cooking-in-ghee-and-water

Finish & rest

  1. Gently fold the fruit & nuts into the rice
  2. Sprinkle with garam masala
    • 1 tsp garam masala
gamram masala on rice
garam-masala-on-rice-and-nuts
  1. Put the lid on and let it stand for 10 mins.
  2. Mix in the garam masala while gently fluffing the rice with a fork.
gently fluff the rice
rice-fruit-and-nuts-in-pan

Transfer to a serving dish.

bisanti pulao
bisanti-pulao-in-glass-bowl

Or, if you really want to impress, press a portion of the rice into a dome-shaped bowl and tip out onto a plate.

dinner is served
two-dinners-served

Serving Sugestion:

bisanti pulao, kosha mangsho & chapati
plated-dinner-closeup