Polao/Pilao/Pilaf Rice Recipe

Ingredients

1. Rice- For authentic Polao you will need Chinigura or Kalijeera Rice (Can find in Bangladeshi store). It is very aromatic and tiny in size. You can also use Basmati Rice. In that case, choose the one that is of best quality and aromatic.
2. Oil- Ghee- a kind of clarified butter that you can find in Bangladeshi/Indian/Pakistani store. You can also use Butter.
3. Ginger Garlic paste
4. Golden Fried Onion
5. Spices- Garam Masala, Bay Leaf, Cloves, Cardamom, Cinnamon.
6. Milk or Cream
7. Salt
8. [Recommended] Raisin- for best experience avoid the dark, small and round ones. Try to choose the the golden and long ones.
9. [Optional] Nuts- you can add one or more of Almond, Hazelnut, Cashew and Pistachio.
10. [Extra] Dry fuits- for better color and more experiments add more of these dry fruits of your choice. E.g. I love Dried Blueberry. Dried Cranberry is good but if you want color contrast with red. You can also add few Dried Prunes.

Recipe

Take 3 cups of rice. It will serve 2 or 3 people once. In a big bowl add tap water (do not add hot water), stir the rice with hand and thoroughly wash it. Drain the water and wash again. Repeat until the water is clean. Now leave the rice in the bowl by adding water until the rice level. The rice will soak all the water.

Heat up your rice cooking pot, add butter/ghee so that the pot’s surface is fully oily. Keep the heat medium low. Now add a teaspoon of salt, 2–3 teaspoon of ginger garlic paste and the spices (1 teaspoon garam masala, 3 long bay leaves, 5–6 cloves, 5 cardamom, 3 hand broken cinnamon buckles of medium size) in it. Stir fry and mix them well. It will start to spread the aroma already. Do not fry too long. As soon as you start getting the aroma, add the rice bowl in it.

Now stir with a long spoon very well so that the spice is mixed with the rice very well and each rice grain becomes oily and fried. Now add 1/2 cup of cream or milk in the rice, a handful of golden of fried onion, and continue to stir so that the rice is mixed very well with them. The milk/cream will get dried and soaked by the rice at this point.

Now add water in the pot. Add to the point so the water level is above the rice by around 1 inch. You can use your tip of finger to touch the rice level and your finger lines to measure that.

Heat up the pot now in high medium and wait until it starts to boil. As it boils, stir the rice with a spoon after adding some nuts, raisins and dried fruits. Cover it in low heat for 20 minutes.

After 20 minutes your rice is ready. Now spread some extra nuts, raisins, dried fruits and golden fried onions on top.

Ready to serve!