Narali Bhat is a traditional Maharastrian recipe cooked on Raksha bandhan. I was planning to cook it on Raksha Bandhan and at the same time I read about the contest. So I made it and now I am happy to share this recipe with you.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup Basmati Rice
• 1 cup Fresh garted Coconut or frozen shredded Coconut
• 1 cup Sugar
• 1 cup coconut milk and 1/2 cup water
• 6 tsp Ghee or unsalted butter
• 1/2 tsp Saffron soaked in 1 tbsp milk
• Cardamom powder to taste
• 3 to 4 whole Green Cardamom
• 5 to 6 Cloves
• 1 stick of cinnamon
• pinch of salt
• 1/3 cup Almonds, Cashew nuts, raisins all together

Procedure:

1. Wash and drain rice for 30 min.
2. Heat 3 tsp ghee, add cloves, cardamon and cinnamon. Add drained rice, saute for 2 min. Meanwhile boil coconut milk, water, pinch of salt.
3. Add this mixture on rice.
4. Let it boil on medium high. As starts boiling, reduce the heat to low put the lid and let it cook for about 10 min. Cook the rice completly. Take out the rice on the plate and cool it completely.
5. In another pan mix grated coconut, sugar, nuts and cook until the mixture thickens and feels dry. Add rice, saffron, 2tsp ghee and Cardamom powder.
6. Mix it lightly. Try not to break rice grains. Put the tight lid on and and let it cook on very low flame for 15 min. Turn off the heat and keep the lid on for another 5 min.
7. Sweet coconut rice is ready to serve. Enjoy.

Additional Tips:

1. Traditional Narali bhat is cooked with jagerry. Take yellow jagerry instead of sugar.
2. Cook the rice completly. after cooking rice with coconut mixture it will again dry up litbit.
3. Use orange food color instead of saffron.

Enjoy!