Navratan Pulao: Delightful and Delectable Rice Recipe

Navratan Pulao, a flavorful and delectable delicacy belongs to Mughlai Cuisine of North India. A healthy, comforting and fragrant, Navratan Pulao is loaded with nuts, flavored with saffron, flower essence and whole spices. This royal Navratan Pulao recipe will surely  enhance your palate!!!

If we talk about different pulao recipes, Navratan Pulao stands out due to its, jewel-like hues and heavenly fragrance. Navratan Pulao is an exquisite and appetizing dish of rice by its own or when paired with our house favorite Dal Makhani or your favorite any mildly spiced curry.

What is Navratan Pulao?

Navratan aka NINE-JEWELS Pulao, is a dish which comes from ancient royal kitchen of Mughal emperors, embedded its roots in from Mughlai cuisine. In Mughlai cuisine, the food has to be rich when cooked for Mughal king and emperors, using aromatic spices, nuts, dried fruits, ghee and cream.  

Mughlai cuisine is influenced by the Turk-Persian cuisine of Central Asia, the region where the early Mughal emperors originally hailed from. Along with them they also brought their rich, delicious cuisine to North India.  Out of many delightful and delectable dishes Pulao was one which also originated in Persia and was known as Pollo/Polo.

If you’re novel to Indian food, or cannot bear hot spicy food, or if you just fond of Indian food for all of its splendid diversity and palatability, this recipe is for you. This is a non-spicy but a fragrant and exquisite recipe for pulao.  There are spices in a Navratan Pulao, but they are whole spices, like green cardamom, cinnamon, cloves and bay leaves, which impart flavor rather than heat. There is no spicy chili or peppers used in this recipe. In fact, its flavor profile is somewhat on sweeter side, because of the use of nuts raisins and saffron milk. And that’s exactly how it should be.

Is Navratan Pulao Healthy?

Navratan, as the name suggests, means enriched with nine jewels of nuts, dried fruits and vegetable. You can add your favorite nuts and vegetables to it. I have added cashews, almonds, walnuts for nuts, raisins for dried fruit, cauliflower, carrots, green beans and green peas for vegetables and paneer for protein. Traditionally, all the nuts and vegetables are deep fried before adding to rice. I have skipped deep frying them to maintain the healthy aspect of pulao keeping the calories as low as possible. Plentiful vegetables, nuts, paneer and aromatic rice, make this pulao recipe healthy and perfect to relish by kids.

Tips for Making the Best and Most Flavorful Navratan Pulao:

• Use best quality of long grain basmati rice to make the best texture and fluffed Navratan pulao. Each grain of rice needs to be fluffy and separate.  I have used Indian classic basmati rice in this recipe and really like the quality of rice. Please don’t use any short grain or sticky rice for this recipe.
• Always, clean, wash the rice well until the water runs clear. Be sure to always soak the rice before cooking. Soak time should be about 30 minutes for stove-top recipe and 15 minutes for instant pot recipe version.
• Each ingredient used in this recipe adds flavor and texture to this pulao, try not to skip any ingredient from the recipe, unless you are trying to make it nut free or vegan by avoiding dairy products.
• The veggies most often used in this pulao are potatoes, cauliflower, carrots, green peas and green beans. I have skipped potatoes, but feel free to add them.
• Don’t overcook the veggies, mushy veggies will ruin the appeal of Navratan Pulao.
• To maintain the low-calorie profile, I have sautéed the veggies instead deep frying them
• You don’t need too many spices in this pulao, but the few whole spices we use are important and indispensable so try not to skip them. These spices tie the vegetables and rice nicely together and add needed flavors to pulao.
• I have used kewra water this time to add the floral fragrance but I keep switching between kewra and rose water.
• Navratan Pulao is a delicate flavored dish that you don’t want to add any complex flavors of stock or coconut milk to it. Just water would be perfectly fine to cook this recipe.

How to make Navratan pulao Vegan?

To make this pulao vegan, substitute ghee with vegetable oil, use nondairy milk and use tofu instead of paneer, with no loss of flavor and deliciousness you would e able to enjoy the vegan version of Navratan Pulao.

What to Serve with Navratan Pulao?

My favourite way to enjoy navratan pulao is to pair it with Dal Makhani. But any mild spicy curry would go beautifully with this, like paneer makahani or navratan korma or even simple cucumber raita goes very well.

How to store Navratan Pulao?

Refrigerator – Navratan Pulao keeps well in the fridge for almost a week. While reheating in microwave sprinkle some water to keep them from drying.
Freezer – Navratan Pulao also makes a perfect freezer friendly recipe for meal prep. Cook a big batch and freeze in portions in freezer-friendly containers. When ready to consume, transfer the frozen pulao container to refrigerator the night before to get it thaw and reheat using microwave or stovetop.

Ingredients

Dairy:

• Clarified Butter (Ghee): 1 tbs
• Indian Cottage Cheese (Paneer): 1 cup/ 140 grams/ 5.0 oz (small cubes)
• Milk: 2 tbs

Pantry

• Long grain Basmati Rice (Chawal): 1 cup/200grams /7.0 oz
• Walnuts (Akhrot): 2 tbsp/ 15grams
• Cashews (Kaju): 2 tbsp halved/ 18grams
• Almonds (Badam): 2 tbsp/ 15 grams
• Raisins (Kishmish): 2-3 tbsp/ 12grams
• Kewra/ Rose Water (Gulab Jal): 1 tsp
• Water (Pani): 1.3 cups for Instant pot and  2.0 cups for stovetop cooking

Produce:

• Green Peas (Hari Matar): 3/4^th cup/ 125 grams/ 4.4 oz, frozen
• Carrots (Gajar) : 3/4 cup/ 125 grams/ 4.4 oz, diced
• Cauliflower (Phool Gobi): 1 cup/ 130 grams/ 4.6 oz
• Cilantro (Hara Dhaniya): handful/15 gms chopped
• Pomegranate Arils (Anar ke Dane): 2 tbsp/

Spices:

• Bay leaf (Tez Patta): 2 in number
• Cinnamon Stick (DalChini): 1-inch stick
• Cloves (Laung): 4-5 in number
• Green Cardamom (Elaichi): 4-5 in number
• Saffron (Kesar): Few strands
• Cumin Seeds (Jeera): 1 tsp
• Salt (Namak): 1 tsp
• Sugar (Chini): 1 tbs
• Lemon juice (Nimbu ka Ras): 1 tbsp

Method

Intant Pot Instructions:

1. Wash the basmati rice a few times, and then soak it in enough water so that the rice is completely soaked and has an inch of extra water on top. Soak the rice for 15 minutes.
2. When you are ready to cook, drain all the water from the rice and keep the rice aside.
3. Warm milk in a microwave safe small bowl and add saffron strands to soak.
4. Now heat ghee in the inner pot of Instant Pot and add whole spices and cumin seeds to it.
5. Once the cumin seeds start spluttering and start getting aroma of whole spices. Add the chopped green chili and nuts.
6. Roast nuts for a minute then add all the vegetables and paneer.
7. Sauté all the vegetables for two minutes. Add salt and sugar.
8. Then add drained rice to the vegetable mixture.
9. Add water, lemon juice and mix well.
10. Before putting on the lid, add the saffron milk and Kewra/rose water.
11. Close the pot with the lid and press the manual/pressure cook button. Cook on high pressure for 5 minutes with the pressure valve in the sealing position.
12. Let the pressure release naturally. Take off the lid and fluff the rice with a light hand.
13. Sprinkle handful of chopped cilantro and pomegranate arils.

Stovetop Pan Instructions:

 

1. Wash the basmati rice a few times, and then soak it in enough water so that the rice is completely soaked and has an inch of extra water on top. Soak the rice for 30 minutes.
2. When you are ready to cook, drain all the water from the rice and keep the rice aside.
3. Warm milk in a microwave safe small bowl and add saffron strands to soak.
4. Start by heating ghee in a wide pan and add cumin seeds to it.
5. Once the cumin seeds start spluttering add whole spices and roast until you start getting aroma of whole spices.
6. Add nuts and roast them for a minute.
7. Now add chopped vegetables and sauté them.
8. Add salt required just for vegetables and mix.
9. Cover the pan with lid and cook the vegetable until they are about 75% cooked. Depending on heat, this should take 10 to 15 minutes.
10. Add paneer and continue sauteing.
11. Then add drained rice, remaining salt and sugar to the vegetable mixture.
12. Add water, mix well and cover it up with a lid.
13. Reduce the heat to low and let the rice cook for about 15 minutes.
14. Once the rice is cooked about 75%, add saffron milk, kewra water and lime juice.
15. Put the lid back and switch off the heat.
16. Let the rice rest for 15 minutes and steam cook with residual heat. The carry over heat will cook the rice perfectly without making them mushy.
17. Fluff up the rice using fork or spatula.
18. Sprinkle some cilantro and pomegranate arils, navratan pulao is ready to serve.

Serve with favorite curry, in my case it is Dal-Makhani.

“For pleasure has no relish unless we share it.” 

― Virginia Woolf, The Common Reader

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Equipment and major ingredients used in this recpie:

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