Pulao Masala Powder

 

Pulao is a fragrant and mildly flavored rice dish which is prepared using long grain rice, assorted vegetables and some whole garam masalas which gives this recipe wonderful flavor. 

Garam masalas (whole spices) are important part of Pulao but many don't like the taste of these spices as even if they add wonderful flavor to this rice dish, then can be very spicy when bitten directly. You will always find these whole spices piled in one corner of plate while eating Veg Pulao. My kids are in the same category and were not very excited to eat Pulao earlier till I developed this recipe of ground Pulao Masala. I am sure there are many versions of this recipe. This is mine and it is very flavorful. Now no more frowns upon seeing whole spices in Pulao in our home!

Ingredients:

Coriander seeds- 2 tablespoon

Cumin seeds- 1 tablespoon

Fennel seeds- 3/4 tablespoon

Green Cardamom- 8 or 9

Black Cardamom- 4 or 5

Cloves- 10 to 12

Bay leaf- 1 big or 2 small

Star anise- 1

Nutmeg- 1/2

Cinnamon- 2 inch stick

Mace- 1

Black pepper- 1 teaspoon

Ginger powder- 1/2 teaspoon

Salt- 1 teaspoon

• Heat a flat pan on low flame.
• Make sure that the pan is not very hot and add 2 tablespoon coriander seeds to it and toast them very lightly for just a minute or so till the seeds are slightly hot but comfortable to touch. Remove it in separate plate.
• Next toast 1 tablespoon of cumin seeds for a minute till it is warm and gives out nice aroma. Remove. it in a plate too.
• Next toast 3/4 tablespoon of fennel seeds very lightly for about a minute. Remove it in a plate.
• Now we will take all the whole spices like green cardamoms, black cardamoms, cloves, bay leaves, star anise, nutmeg, cinnamon, mace and black pepper in the pan and lightly toast them for minute or two. Remove them in the plate too and let all the whole spices and the seeds cool down completely.
• Once all the seeds and spices have cooled down, add them all to a mixer blender jar. If you want, you can discard the skin of black cardamoms and just add the seeds to the jar.
• Add 1/2 teaspoon ginger powder and 1 teaspoon salt. 
• Grind everything to a fine powder. Don't grind continuously. Take a small break or two in between to let the masala powder cool down a bit before you continue grinding it to finer powder as continuous grinding will increase the temperature of the spices and burn them.
• Store the masala powder in air tight container. You can store this masala in air tight container for month or two in cool dry place.

You can watch the whole process on videos-

For video in English-

For video in Marathi-