Prawn Pulao

Since today the world was supposed to end, I didn’t cook anything. But then it was lunch time, the world was still hanging around and we were hungry. So I dug into the refrigerator (which wasn’t stocked that well either because of the world ending and all). I had some frozen prawns and decided to make one pot meal.

Ingredients

1. 1lb. tiger prawns
2. 1/2 cup onion juice
3. 1 cup gobindobhog or jeera rice
4. 4,5 green chilies slit length wise
5. 1tbsp. grated ginger
6. 2,3 bay leaves or tejpatta
7. Whole garam masala (1” cinnamon stick, 2-3 cloves and 2 green cardamoms)
8. 4-5 tsp. ghee (clarified butter)
9. 2tbsp. sugar
10. Salt to taste

Procedure

Wash rice with several changes of water and spread them flat on a paper towel. Allow it to air dry for some time.

Marinate prawns for 15 minutes with onion juice and salt. Heat 2 tsp. ghee in a pan and fry marinated prawns on medium heat till they turn pink. Remove fried prawns with a slotted spoon and keep aside.

Add rest of the ghee to the pan and allow it to melt. Temper with bay leaf and slightly bruised garam masala. Wait till you get the fragrances of them. Now add green chilies to it and sauté for a minute. Remove green chilies and reserve them for later use.

Now add rice to it and fry on medium heat for about 5 minutes. Fry till you see all grains of rice glisten and are well coated with ghee. This step ensures that all the rice grains stay separate and will not become sticky when your pulao is done.

Add grated ginger, salt and sugar to the rice. Mix everything well. Pour one and half cup of war water to it. Cook it covered on medium heat till rice is almost done.

Remove the cover and add fried prawns and green chilies to it. Continue cooking till rice is completely done. Leave it uncovered and fluff gently with a fork.

This is a one pot meal and doesn’t require anything else to be served with it.