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Zarda Pulao Recipe | How to Make Zarda – Sweet Rice: a traditional Indian dessert rice dish that’s aromatic and infused with saffron, dry fruits, ghee, sugar, and rose water. Learn How to Make Zarda Recipe or Meethe Chawal
Zarda, also famous as Zarda Pulao, Meethe Chawal, Zard Pulao.
“Food for the body is not enough. There must be food for the soul – Dorothy Day”
And every bite of this Zarda Recipe or Zarda Pulao feeds not only our taste buds but also the soul.
Hello Everyone, today I’m sharing one such traditional Indian recipe that’s specially made for celebrations, be it a festival, wedding or just about celebrating life.
I’ll be making this very shortly for a ‘Festival of Holi’ brunch at our place.
As many of you would be aware, Holi is one of the biggest Indian festivals.
It’s also known as Festival of Color / Festival of Love all over the world and this time it’s on Monday – March 13, 2017.
And every year, I try to cook 1 or 2 recipes that are as colorful as our festival but using all-natural ingredients.
So, this year, it’s Zarda / Meethe Chawal which is actually a Persian word. It means the color yellow and the recipe evolved during the Mughal period in India.
Now, since, it’s a Mughal period dish and like most dishes of that time, it’s also made using lots of ghee, milk, and nuts.
But we are definitely going to make a slightly healthier or a lighter version.
Now, let’s get to the recipe and make this delicious Zarda – Indian Sweet Rice Pilaf.
Optional: Rose-water to give it this delicate flowery fragrance and also adds to that fresh taste.
Now, that we got everything needed to make our Zarda recipe, I just wanted to add that tad bit more color or pop.
Hence, I’m topping it with pomegranate seeds, but you may skip this step if need be or if unable to find pomegranate.
This dish is very popular in the Northern States of India like UP, Punjab, Bihar, Uttarakhand and more.
In earlier years, it was also a sort of mandatory/very popular dish in weddings/festivals because of it’s three main things.
So, you can imagine, every wedding that our great-grandparents would have attended, they would have tasted this sweet preparation.
I feel it was also popular those days cause there was no electricity or fridge to store sweets (that goes bad easily).
And this Zarda – Indian Sweet Rice Pilaf with Saffron and Nuts recipe can easily be kept outside for 1-2 days.
Once we have all the ingredients, let’s talk about the cooking method and you can cook it 2 ways:
I usually prefer ‘ Method 1’ as it adds much more flavor to the dish and the rice comes out all separate but I’ve cooked using the ‘Method 2’ as well when I’m in a hurry.
So pick your choice of method and this festive season or for any of your celebrations, try this ‘Zarda – Indian Sweet Rice Pilaf .
Every bite is filled with so much flavor that not only satisfy’s your taste-buds but the soul too. It’s popular for weddings, festivals or special occasions is gluten-free and can be made vegan.
Tried Our Recipe – AWESOME!!!
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Learn How to Make Zarda / Zarda Pulao which is a delicious traditional Indian dessert rice dish infused with saffron, dry fruits, ghee, sugar, and rose-water. Meethe Chawal
31 Replies to "Zarda Pulao Recipe | How to Make Zarda - Sweet Rice"
Annie August 10, 2019 (2:17 pm)
When you add the sugar and saffron milk, is the sugar going in dry or is it supposed to be melted with the saffron milk?
Molly Kumar August 11, 2019 (11:27 am)
Hi Annie, the sugar is added dry (I’d recommend using thin crystal sugar) or lightly crushed to break any big granule. The saffron milk goes separately. Thank, Molly