Ghee rice needs absolutely no introduction, but I’m going to do it anyway! It’s rice, in this case, kaima, cooked in ghee with a few spices and a little onion. A good neichoru is the foundation for a truly great Thalassery biryani. But neichoru is so much more than that. It’s a lovely Sunday lunch, with a mutton curry and some kozhi porichathu, or a coconut dal and some pickle and papadam, if you’d like to keep it vegetarian. It’s the starting point for a fried rice that is just a leeetle bit extra, and the first step to making my ultimate comfort food — mum’s chicken and rice casserole. I learnt to make ghee rice from my aunt Rafia who is *the* most exacting cook I know, and it comes out perfect every time. Mum has always made it in the pressure cooker or a rice cooker, while I stubbornly made it in a regular pot for many years. However, the original method does require a little more hand-holding, and now that I am mum-was-right-about-the-pressure-cooker-years-old, I’m ready to expand my ghee rice-making horizons. It took us a while to figure out how to make ghee rice in the instant pot that came out perfect every time, but we’ve nailed it.
Whenever I make neichoru, I make extra — another Kathija Hashim tip, and I am in the best mood all day because not only do I have a great meal coming right up, there’s fried rice and possibly a chicken and rice casserole in my near future. Now isn’t that a nice feeling?
This is the second recipe in the Instant Pot series — check out this mutta kakkam (eggs in spicy masala), if you haven’t seen that already. If you’d like to make the neichoru on the stove top in a regular pot, here’s the recipe.
Recipe: Instant Pot Neichoru
Ingredients
1 cup kaima rice, (or jeera samba, in a pinch)
2 cups water
Few slices of thinly sliced onion
2 pods cardamom
Small piece of cinnamon
1 clove
1 tbsp ghee
Salt
Method
Rinse the rice until the water runs clear. Set aside in a colander to drain the water.
Set the water to boil.
Turn on the Instant Pot, and set to Sauté (medium temperature) mode.
Add the ghee, and when hot, add in the spices and sauté until fragrant.
Next, add the onions and sauté for a few minutes until they turn soft and translucent. Do not let the onion brown.
Now add the rice and stir continuously for a few minutes until the rice is fully coated with the ghee and makes a cracking sound as it fries a little in the ghee. Be careful to not let the rice stick to the bottom of the pot. Change the Sauté setting to low heat if you find the rice catching.
Add the boiled water, followed by salt and stir. Taste the water — it needs to be slightly saltier than you want the rice to be.
Close the instant pot, change the setting to Pressure Cook on low, for 5 minutes. Make sure the pressure release knob is set to Seal.
When the 5 minutes is up, let the pressure naturally release for 10 minutes. Now release the remaining pressure by turning the pressure release knob to vent before opening up the pot.
Enjoy!