Pushpanna (Bengal royal rice)
Oh, what a wonderful, rich, festive rice dish! With whole cloves, cardamoms, cinammon, cumin seeds, cashews, almonds, raisins, shredded coconut, peas and tofu, even simple pilaf rice cannot compete with this explosion of flavours and textures! I recommend serving this rice dish with simple, lean dals such as turmeric spinach golden lentil dal, mixed dal fry, chana dal, sweet & sour split pea soup, or sambhar.
Ingredients
- 275g basmati rice
- 1/2 tsp turmeric
- 1 tbsp hot plant-based milk
- 1 tsp salt
- 0.5 tsp nutmeg
- 50g margarine
- 35g cashews
- 35g almonds
- 40g raisins
- 1 cinammon stick
- 1 tsp cumin seeds
- 6 cardamom pods, bruised
- 6 cloves
- 1/2 tsp black pepper
- 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
- 1/2 tsp asafetida
- 14g shredded coconut
- 15g brown sugar
- 36g frozen peas
- 280g firm tofu
Instructions
- Wash, and drain the rice.
- Cut tofu in small cubes.
- Heat up a third of the margarine in a large pan and fry the tofu until golden on all sides. Reserve
- Heat up another third of the margarine, and fry the cashews and almonds for ~ 1 min. Then, add the coconut, raisins, and whole spices until coconut is golden. Make sure not to burn the coconut! Reserve.
- Heat up the last third of the margarine in the pan, and fry the rice until it becomes translucent.
- Add everything back to the pan, along with the peas, the rest of the spices, sugar, salt and ~450g water.
- Let it rice absorb the water, stirring regularly. Adjust the water content if needed to get the right consistency. Serve with a lean dal, and enjoy!