Difficulty: Medium

Ingredients

• 1 cup basmati rice, washed and soaked in water for 30 minutes
• 1 cup orange juice (preferably fresh), it should not be sour
• Orange peel
• ½ cup castor sugar
• 2 tbsp additional castor sugar
• Few cloves (laung)
• Few green cardamom pods (elaichi)
• 1 tbsp ghee

Directions

Wash the rice and soak for 30 minutes. Scrape off the pith from the orange peel and cut into thin matchstick-width strips. We will need a quarter cup of these strips.

Take the orange strips and boil in water. Once it boils for about 2 minutes, throw water away and repeat 3 more times — a total of four times. This removes the bitter taste from the peel. Put the strips in a sieve till all water drains away. Next take 2 tablespoons of sugar, and cook strips over a slow fire, till all sugar has melted and strips are nicely coated. The sugar syrup should have become dry by now. Keep aside for garnishing.

Cook soaked rice covered in pure orange juice carefully on a slow fire. Fluff up with a fork when done.

In a pot put ghee on a low flame. Add cloves and cardamom. When cardamom puffs up, add half of the rice. Sprinkle half of the sugar on top, and carefully fold it in. Now add the remaining rice, and again on top the remaining sugar, folding it in. When done, fold entire rice again so it’s ghee coated also. Place in a dish, and garnish with orange strips.

Tips

In place of castor sugar, you can use ground sugar crystals