Creamy almond cherry pulao

The name itself sounds so dreamy. The pulao is cooked in cream, has the crunchiness of almonds and sweetness of cherry- oh lovely. The first time I made it was for hubby's b'day lunch and he really liked it. No marks for guessing that I liked it too. It sometimes amazes me how I am regulated by "needs"- well to be precise pantry needs.So behind this recipe was the need to get over the cream. So on my regular browsing trip I got to read about the "Kashmiri Pulao" which is cooked in cream along with loads of vegetables and dry fruits. So I took the inspiration from it to use my cream in the best way possible and make this special pulao for him. So here is my recipe for this lightly sweet "creamy almond cherry pulao".

Creamy almond cherry pulao

Serves: 2 persons

Ingredients :

Almonds- 15 nos. (chopped)

Cherry- 15 nos.  (chopped)

Oil- 1 tbsp

Rice- 1 glass

Cream- 1 glass

Water 1 glass (preferably Basmati rice but I have used Sona masoori rice)

Bay leaf-1

Shahi zeera- 1 tsp

Cinnamon- 1” inch stick

Green cardamom- 3

Black cardamom- 1

Cloves- 4

Sugar- 1 tbsp

Salt to taste

Procedure : Wash the rice well and rinse all the water. In another bowl, take cream, water and sugar. Mix it well and keep aside. After that heat oil in the pressure cooker, then add bay leaf, whole garam masalas and shahi zeera. Fry it for few seconds till it leaves nice fragrance. After that add almonds and fry till it turns lightly browned (so fry on low flame). Add cherries, rice and salt. Fry the rice well and finally add the cream-water-sugar mixture. Give it a final stir and pressure cook till done. After opening the pressure cooker you may find layer of cream on rice, but there is nothing to worry just use a ladle and mix the rice well before serving.

Note:

If you don't want the sweeter version you may skip adding the sugar.

For rich version of the pulao, instead of water you may use milk and ghee instead of oil.

Almonds and cherry do go well with each other, I once used cashew instead of almonds and I found that the pulao tasted better with almonds.