Sweet rice cooked in Gur (Cane Sugar), flavored with Saffron and Orange Juice, topped with coconut and nuts.
Zarda (or Jarda, meethe chawal) is a yummy sweetened rice dish found in the Indian Subcontinent. In this recipe, we sweeten the rice with Gur which is cane sugar; golden raisins also give it a burst of sweetness. I also like to break up the sweetness with a light citrus tang of orange. It has nuts like almonds and pistachios, cashews, walnuts; you can use any nuts you like. The fragrance and flavor of saffron is just amazing! This is how you transform plain rice to a whole new identity!
Zarda is commonly eaten by itself as a dessert. Although sometimes, we ate it with dal – yes dal! Zarda and dal is a playful combination of sweet and savory and spicy all in the same bit – trust me it works. Sometimes we had it as dessert and other times it was part of the main meal with dal gosht. You can can decide how you like it. Perfect to make with leftover plain white rice…shhhh.
Makes 4 servings as dessert, 2 as a meal
Time: 15 mins
Ingredients:
- 1 cup rice (Basmati long grain), wash and soak in water for 30 mins
- 2/3 cup Jaggery/gurd (chop into smaller chunks to its easier to melt)
- 1 1/4 cup water
- 1/2 cup of orange juice
- 1 tbsp orange zest
- 2 tbsp ghee or butter (oil is not preferred for this dish)
- 1 bay leaf (tej patta)
- 1 cinnamon stick (taj)
- 4-5 green cardamom (elaichi)
- 3-4 cloves (lavang)
- 1/2 tsp Fennel Seeds (saunff)
- 2 tbsp golden raisins
- 1/4 tsp Saffron
- 1/2 cup chopped nuts (almonds, pistachios, walnuts, cashews, any combination you like)
- Optional: large coconut shaved pieces for garnish
Method:
- Wash and rinse the rice 4-5 times till the white cloudy water is gone.
- Soak the rice in water for 30 mins, drain when ready to use.
- In a pot on medium heat add water, orange juice, orange zest, saffron and gur. Let it boil till all the gur is fully melted.
- In another pot on medium heat, add ghee, whole spices nuts, coconut and raisins. Stir fry for 5 mins till nuts are lightly golden brown and fragrant.
- Slowly add in the gur liquid and rice to the nuts.
- Cover and cook for 12-15 mins till rice is fully cooked and all liquid is dried out.
- Garnish with nuts, coconut shaves and crumble barfi on top. Enjoy!
Tips:
- You can cook this recipe on the stove top in a regular pot, or if you have it an Instant Pot. First use Saute mode to cook the nuts, remove them. Then boil and melt the gur. Add back in the nuts and rice then hit the rice button for 12 mins.
- Highly recommend using ghee or butter for this recipe, it really adds great flavor to the dish which cannot be achieved with oil.
- To make rice fluffy and each grain separate, you MUST wash and rinse the rice 4-5 times. All the white cloudy water is the starch which makes the rice sticky and mushy. For this dish, we don’t need the starch.
- To use leftover cooked plain white rice, use only 3/4 cup of liquid ( 1/2 cup of OJ and 1/4 cup of water).
- To give this dish further richness, my mom serves with crumbles of barfi on top! Take any milk based barfi and crumble it on top to really give it another level of richness. This is for special occasions after all.
- To enjoy is with dal, try it with this Panchmel Dal recipe. You can add meat if you like or leave it vegetarian.