Zarda rice is a traditional sweet dessert in Pakistan. This is an easy recipe of zarda rice. These are also called meethe chawal. It can be made on special weekends, festivals, and weddings. It originated from Mughals. And the word is derived from Persian dictionary “zard” meaning yellow in color. Using good ingredients and the right cooking skills makes delicious and mouth-watering zarda. Meethe chawal is a favorite dessert of all age groups.
Nutrients in Zarda per serving
| Calories | 478 |
| Carbohydrates | 68g |
| Fats | 21g |
| Proteins | 6g |
| Calories | 40mg |
These are approximate calculations
Ingredients of zarda
Rice:
Using good quality rice is important for making good quality zarda. Use sella (long) basmati rice for zarda because they don’t turn smushy.
Ghee:
Using good quality ghee is important. Add a generous amount of ghee to zarda rice it gives a flavorful taste and glossy look to rice.
Cardamom:
Cardamom and cloves are fried in ghee to give an aromatic flavor to rice
Yellow color:
Add yellow food color in boiling water. Saffron can also be used as an alternative to yellow color.
Nuts:
Add fried nuts to enhance the flavor and nutritional value of zarda rice.
Tips and Tricks to make good quality zarda
Boil rice in excess of water so all the starch of the rice removes.
immediately drain rice after boiling so they do not over boiled.
The consistency of sugar syrup would be 2 string.
Add a generous amount of ghee to rice.
Ingredients
- For Sugar syrup
- Nuts
Instructions
- Wash rice thrice, and soak it in lots of water for 30 minutes.
- Boil 5 cups of water and add yellow food color or saffron to it.
- Drain the rice from water and add it to boiling water.
- Cook rice until they are 90% cooked. Don't boil to 100% because they turned smushy upon further cooking.
- Immediately drain the rice completely and spread it over a colander. cool them completely.
- Add ghee to a wide pan and fry nuts to a golden and then fry raisins until they turn plump and then remove to a plate.
- Then add cardamom and cloves and fry for 30 seconds then add sugar and 3-4 tbsp of water and cook on low flame until sugar melts.
- Add boiled rice and mix it with sugar syrup. add mawa and fried nuts at top and keep rice on dam for 15 minutes.
- Don't use mix mawa before dam because it has water content due to which rice becomes soggy and smushy.
- After 15 minutes turn the flame off and rest for further 10 minutes and then mix rice and other ingredients.
- Zarda / meethe chawal are ready to eat.