Meethe Chawal Recipe - Basant Panchami Special
After the celebration of Uttarayan, comes Basant Panchami celebrations. On the day of Makar Sankranti sun enters towards Uttar direction and hence it is celebrated whereas Basant Panchami is celebrated to welcome spring season. This is the birth day of Goddess Saraswati. I still recall my school days when we as kids use to see on a particular day our most of the teachers dressed in yellow color and we use to wonder why, but never asked them. As I grew up I got to know why all my lovely teachers then use to be all nicely dressed up in yellow sarees and some of them even wore yellow bangles 
In Punjab, like other states Basant Panchami is celebrated with lots of zeal. There is a tradition of eating sweet yellow rice on Basant Panchami and also wearing yellow color clothes.
Like Punjab, this day is special for entire India. In Bengal,Basant Panchami is known by the name of ‘Sri Panchami’. It is also celebrated in other states like Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and many people also worship Lord Krishna together with Kaamdev on this day.
As Punjabi’s, we always prepare Meethe Chawal on this day, so did I and here I am sharing the recipe of this sweet safforn yellow rice I prepared yesterday but could not post it then. Again as I say in my earlier recipes too, this one is also SIMPLE and EASY recipe and you can make this quick sweet dish anytime when you don’t feel like putting too much effort in preparing something sweet.
Ingredients -
- Rice - 1 cup
- Sugar - 1 cup
- Water - 2 cups
- Ghee - 2 tablespoons
- Pistachios - 5 chopped
- Almonds - 5 -7 sliced
- Cardamom Powder - 1 teaspoon (I used cardamom pods directly,one my preferred spice )
- Cloves - 2 -3
- Bay leaf - 1 (optional)
- Saffron - few strands
- Yellow food color - a few drops
Method -
Wash and soak the basmati rice for about 30 minutes. After that boil the rice in 1 cup water on low flame, do add cloves and cardamom to the water while you put the rice to boil. Now take another pan(for the sugar syrup) and add 1 cup water and 1 cup sugar, let it come to a boil, stir in between and when the entire sugar is nicely mixed in water, switch off the flame.
On the other hand when the entire water is absorbed in the rice, you pour the already prepared sugar syrup along with few saffron strands and few drops of yellow colour. Let is cook on low flame untouched, just stir once while you pour in the sugar syrup. Occasionally keep checking if the sugar syrup is also fully absorbed in the rice.
When you see that the rice had absorbed the entire liquid then your sweet yellow saffron rice is ready. Close the lid again and let them rest for few minutes in it.
Take a small pan, heat ghee in it and add chopped nuts to it and stir fry little or till light brown. Pour them on the rice and stir gently.
Serve them hot, trust me you will love the aroma, color and of course the taste.
Enjoy!!
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
wish you and your family a happy basant panchami, anamika. we too celebrate basant panchami at my in laws place. this yellow rice recipe is quite similar to what you have made.
we add turmeric instead of yellow color for the rice to be yellow. the vibrant yellow colored rice is looking so good.
Thank you so much Dassana and wish you and your family the same! Turmeric is no doubt a healthy option, but to get the color I wanted for safforn yellow rice I feel few drops of yellow color do more justice
, generally I use turmeric for preparing yellow zeera rice, peas potato pulao etc.