Palak Pulao Recipe
- 1 small bay leaf
- 1 small cinnamon stick
- 1 onion sliced
- 1 tbsp oil
- salt as needed
- 2 green cardamoms
- 3 cloves
- lemon juice as needed
- little turmeric
- 1 cup rice (uncooked)
- half of a star anise or few petals
- â¼ tsp cumin or shahi jeera
- 2 cups palak / spinach (tightly packed about 100 grams l
- 2 to 3 green chilies sliced
- 1 tsp ginger garlic paste or 2 garlic cloves
- 1 medium potato or any veggies
- â½ to â¾ garam masala
- 10 leaves
- Carbohydrate 96.3357409090909 g
- Cholesterol 0 mg
- Fat 27.9186000547787 g
- Fiber 2.95618178118359 g
- Protein 8.78916363636364 g
- Saturated Fat 3.74563955254729 g
- Serving Size 1 1 Serving (203g)
- Sodium 85.7441818181818 mg
- Sugar 93.3795591279073 g
- Trans Fat 1.47303591171974 g
- Calories 676 calories
Step-by-step
- Cook rice and cool completely.
- Wash palak thoroughly in ample water. Drain completely.
- Add them to a blender and puree.
- Heat a pan with oil, add spices and saute for a min.
- Fry ginger garlic paste until the raw smell vanishes.
- Add onion and fry until golden. Add veggies and saute until they are tender. If needed sprinkle some water and cook.
- Sprinkle garam masala, salt and turmeric.
- Add palak puree and saute until the raw smell goes off.
- Add mint leaves and saute for a min or two. Switch off the stove.
- Add cooled rice, squeeze in the lemon juice.
- Mix everything well.
- Serve palak rice hot or warm.
Standard recipes rarely specify equipment limitations, leaving home cooks to discover mid-process that a shallow skillet will crowd the pureed greens. Blending raw spinach requires a high-speed blender or an immersion hand blender with a narrow shroud to achieve a completely smooth liquid rather than fibrous green flecks. A wide, heavy-bottomed sauté pan or Dutch oven works best for evaporating the moisture from the palak puree quickly without scorching the bottom.
Cooking rice ahead of time and cooling it completely on a wide baking sheet prevents the starches from gelatinizing further during mixing, which turns grains into a sticky paste. Spreading the cooked grains in a thin layer accelerates cooling before the greens go into the pan. Whole spices like bay leaf, cinnamon, and green cardamoms demand hot oil to release their fat-soluble aromatic compounds into the cooking fat within sixty seconds, whereas ground garam masala burns easily and belongs later in the sequence alongside the turmeric.
Pureeing raw spinach rather than blanching it retains maximum moisture, requiring careful reduction over medium heat until the raw chlorophyll smell dissipates entirely, usually taking four to five minutes. Adding the cooled rice off the heat preserves grain integrity while the residual warmth tempers the dish. Substituting frozen spinach works if thawed completely and squeezed dry in a cheesecloth to remove excess water, preventing the final dish from becoming soggy.
