Jeera Rice- 3 ways to prepare delicious Jeera Rice!

 

Jeera Rice

Jeera rice is one of the staple dish in most North Indian buffets. It is a flavorful dish prepared using any long grain rice, clarified butter and lots of cumin seeds. Whenever we go out for dinner to any Indian Restaurant, most of us end up ordering Jeera Rice with Dal Tadka or Chole Masala. It goes very well with most North Indian curries and also tastes great by itself! 

Today I am going to share with you three different ways of preparing this wonderful dish. 

Ingredients-

Rice- 1 cup

Clarified Butter/ Ghee- 1 tablespoon

Cumin seeds/ Jeera- 1 tablespoon

Salt to taste

Coriander- for garnish

Common step for all the three methods-

• Wash 1 cup rice thoroughly and soak it in water for at least 20 minutes. Drain rice after 20 minutes.

Method 1-

• Heat a pot on low heat and add 1 tablespoon of clarified butter/ ghee to it and let it melt.
• Don't let the ghee be too hot. Add 1 tablespoon of cumin seeds as soon as the ghee melts so that the flavor of cumin seeds infuses in ghee without getting burned.
• Once the cumin seeds starts to crackle, add drained rice and gently stir if for few minutes.
• Add 1 and 1/2 cup of water and salt to taste and let it all come to boil.
• Once most of the water is absorbed by rice and there is very little water remaining cover the rice and now cook on low flame for 7-10 minutes. 
• Confirm once if the rice has cooked properly. If not, drizzle little water and cover and cook for another 5 minutes.
• Garnish with chopped coriander and serve.

Method 2-

• Heat a pressure pan or pressure cooker on low flame and add 1 tablespoon of clarified butter/ ghee.
• Add 1 tablespoon of cumin seed (jeera) as soon as the ghee melts so that the flavor of cumin seeds infuses in ghee without getting burned.
• Once the cumin seeds starts to crackle, add drained rice and stir gently for few minutes.
• Add 1 and 1/2 cup water and salt to taste.
• Cover and cook on medium heat for just one whistle. Turn off the flame and let the pressure cooker cool down naturally.
• Open and fluff the rice very gently with fork or any spoon.
• Garnish with coriander and serve.

Method 3-

In this method, we will be adding few Whole masala to add more flavor to the dish. We will need 1 bay leaf, 1 black cardamom, 1 star anise, 1 piece of mace, 1 small piece of cinnamon.

• Take a pan and add 4 cups of water to it. Cover and let it come to boil.
• Once the water starts boiling, add a teaspoon of oil and some salt to taste.
• Then add drained rice and let it cook till the rice is cooked 75-80 percent.
• Then drain the excess water and keep it aside. 
• Now heat a pan on low heat and add 1 tablespoon of clarified butter/ ghee to it.
• As soon as the ghee starts melting, add all the whole masalas listed above and a tablespoon of cumin seeds. Fry for a minute or two till you start smelling the aroma of the masalas. 
• Now add the cooked rice and little salt. Remember that we added a teaspoon of salt when cooking the rice so adjust the quantity of salt accordingly.
• Drizzle very little water over he rice and cover and cook for 4-5 minutes.
• Garnish with chopped coriander and our Jeera Rice is ready to be served.

Tips-

• You can add whole spices to the first two recipes too to add more flavor.
• If you are preparing Jeera rice for a party in large quantity, you can prepare rice a day earlier and put it in refrigerator and give the tadka few hours before the party. Just make sure that you cool down the rice completely and there is no water in the rice before putting it in the refrigerator. 

You can watch the complete process of preparing delicious Jeera Rice on our YouTube channel. We request you to subscribe to our blog and YouTube channels if you have not already done so. 

For recipe in English-

For recipe in Marathi-