[New copy of original post, courtesy of
George]
Once I started making pulao rice using a microwave oven, I never looked back, and my pulao is in most respects as good as I have eaten. But when Ganesha opened in Bodmin, and I compared their pulao rice with mine, I was sure that theirs was better and I began to wonder why ... I finally reached the conclusion that while the taste and appearance of mine was as good as Ganesha's, theirs was better in terms of aroma — when you lift the lid of one of their takeaway containers, the fragrance of the cooked rice is out of this world. So this evening I tried to replicate theirs in terms of aroma as well as taste and appearance, and I do believe I had some success.
What I did on this occasion (and what I have never done previously) is to prepare what I will call the rice "gravy" in advance of cooking the rice. Normally I heat some ghee in a Pyrex casserole dish in the microwave oven, add the whole spices, put the casserole dish back and cook for a further five minutes, add the rice, cook for further two minutes, add the water and then cook for 12 minutes at full power and 20 minutes at 10%. On this occasion I bhooned the spices in a little oil in a saucepan, then added what I estimated to be sufficient boiling water and cooked on a low heat for half an hour or so. I then cooked the rice as above, strained the water onto the rice, picked out the cardomom and garlic flakes from the sieve with chopsticks, added them to the rice, gave it all a good stir and then cooked as before. The results were excellent — when I lifted the lid off the Pyrex casserole, I was greeted with a wonderful smell of aromatic rice. Not exactly the same smell as Ganesha's, I have to say — clearly some more analytical work on their rice spicing required — but an order of magnitude more aromatic than before. If, like me, you like aromatic rice, do give it a try.
** Phil.