Sweet Saffron Rice
इस व्यंजन को हिन्दी में पढ़ें
Sweet saffron rice is a very traditional dessert made for Basant panchami or Saraswati Pooja. This delicious dessert is made with cooked rice, nuts, sugar and saffron. Sweet saffron rice is mildly flavored with whole spices. This dish is usually offered to Goddess Saraswati (the goddess of knowledge) for bhog before serving.
Ingredients (Serves 4)
- Basmati Rice ½ cup
- Saffron (Amazon link for Organic Saffron) threads ¼ tsp
- Milk 2 tbsp
- Ghee 3 tbsp
- Green cardamoms 6
- Cloves 4-5
- Black cardamom 1
- Cinnamon 1 small piece
- Cashew nuts ½ cup
- Raisins 2 tbsp
- turmeric powder ¼ tsp
- Sugar ½ cup
Method of preparation
- Clean, wash and soak the rice in water for about 20 minutes.
- Boil about 4 cups of water. Add soaked rice. Cook until the rice are done. Strain the rice to remove extra water. Do not overcook the rice for this recipe. Keep rice aside to cool down.
- Soak saffron threads in two tablespoons of lukewarm milk. Keep aside.
- Heat ghee in a wok on medium heat. Add cloves, green and big cardamoms and cinnamon stick and fry for 10-15 seconds. Add cashew nuts and fry for 30 seconds. Add rasins and also turmeric powder. Mix well.
- Add rice. Mix the rice well. Now add saffron milk and sugar. Mix all the ingredients gently. Reduce the heat and let the rice cook with sugar till the rice absorbs the sugar syrup. Stir occasionally. It takes about 5-7 minutes to cook the rice with sugar.
- Delicious sweet saffron rice is ready.
Some Tips and Suggestions
- You can add some other nuts as per your taste.
- Turmeric podwer is optional. I have added turmeric to give a nice yellow color.
- One can also add a little bit of ground cardamoms to enhance the flavor.
- Garnish sweet saffron rice with slivered pista. The green color of pista gives a beautiful color contrast with the yellow color of rice.
Some other sweets for Basant Panchami
-
Rava Kesari
Rava Kesari- Rava is a Hindi word for semolina and Kesari is for saffron. As the name shows this is a sweet porridge (halwa) preparation made with semolina and saffron. Rava kesari taste different than North Indian sooji ka halwa. There are different recipes of making semolina ...
-
Moong Dal Halwa
Moong dal halwa is a very traditional Indian dessert made on special occasions. I have used dry, coarsely ground moong dal to make the halwa. It cuts the amount of time needed for frying the lentils. The amount of ghee is also lower compared to the traditional recipe...
