Niramish Chhanar Polao/Paneer Pilaf

For Maach e bhaat e Bangali (Fish loving Bengalis), vegetarian days are tougher eg. on some pujas at home or Saturdays for many families. And it becomes even tougher for us since this calls for an elaborate spread to be prepared to fill up the gap of maach, mangsho (fish and meat). And this has been going for ages. My thakuma (grand mother) used to prepare at least three kinds of bhajas(fries), aloobhaja(potato fry), potol bhaja(fried pointed gourd), begun bhaja(fried eggplant) and many more on such days. The meal had to always end with chutney and making basanti polao, ghee bhaat, narikel r dudh polao, komola polao or any other variety was almost mandatory. My thakurda (grand father) being a connoisseur never agreed on lesser than this. There had to be a good niramish torkari to replete the void created due to the absence of fish. Channar polao was a dish that was often prepared on such days by my grandmother.

Our vegetarian days now are though not connected to any puja or Saturday but any random day we decide. But the challenge remains similar. So, this week while we decided to eat vegetarian at home, my better half asked me to prepare chhanar polao.

These days I have moved to cooking in lohar kadai (iron kadai) at home from non-stick kadai. Debakshi, a friend of mine had gifted me this kadai and since then I am addicted to cooking in this. However, this polao was not cooked in this kadai since iron gives a black tinge to the food.

Step by step instructions to prepare Chhanar Polao

Wash the rice for about thrice and soak it in water for about 2 hours. (Washing the rice few times removes all the excess starch from rice)

Drain all the water, spread the rice in a kitchen towel and let the rice air dry for about half an hour.

Meanwhile, in a pan dry roast 1 inch of cinnamon stick, 2 cardamom pods, 4 cloves, 4 black pepper, 2 dry red chili, 2 bay leaves, 1/2 teaspoon of sahijeera and grind them to a fine powder.

Strain the ground spices and remove all the bigger chunks. To the powder add a pinch of nutmeg powder and your spice mixture is ready.

Soak the saffron strands in warm milk and keep it aside.

To the air-dried rice, add the spice mixture and grated ginger carefully, not to break the rice.

Toss the paneer with some salt, turmeric powder and red chili powder and keep them aside.

In a deep bottomed pot, add 4 tablespoons of ghee and heat it.

Once the ghee is hot, fry the cashew nuts, slivered almonds, and kishmish and keep them aside. (Be careful not to burn the nuts and kishmish)

Then lightly saute the paneer in the same ghee and keep them aside.

Temper the remaining ghee with 2 bay leaves, 1/2 inch of cinnamon stick, 4 cloves, 3 cardamom pods.

As the ghee turns aromatic, add the rice to the pot. Saute the rice carefully for a couple of minutes till the rice changes its color.

To the rice now, add 3 cups of water and 1 cup of kesar soaked in milk and salt.

Then add the fried nuts, kishmish and the fried paneer to the pot.

Cover the pot and continue cooking the rice on medium flame till all the rice is cooked properly and there is no water in the pot. Now add the sugar and carefully toss the rice on low flame not to break the rice.

Turn off the flame. Serve Chhanar polao hot with niramish aloor dum.

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