Zarda (Zarda Pulao or Meethe Chawal or Sweet Saffron Rice) is an Indian Muslim delicacy. Long grains of fragrant basmati rice are flavored with saffron and tossed together with dry fruits and sugar. It's food at its regal best, but it's also an easy recipe that nearly anyone can pull off in under 30 minutes.
Ramadan (or Ramzan as Indian Muslims say it) may be known as a time of fasting, but it really is a time for great food.
In India, street food vendors make the most of Ramzan, rolling out their best wares for ravenous eaters eager to break their fasts during iftar, the evening meal.
When I lived in Bombay, my coworkers at the Times of India building and I would make the short walk to Mohammad Ali Road, which would come alive after hours, especially during Ramzan, with the scent and cacophony of thousands of vendors cooking and selling all the gorgeous food you could imagine.
While many of those tiny stalls are open year-round, hundreds more seasonal stalls would crop up for the month when demand was the heaviest.
The din and clatter of long ladles against four-foot-wide kadhais bubbling with oil set the mood for the thousands of people who thronged the street, wide-eyed and literally kids in a candy store. They were not all Muslims, but they were united by a more visceral religion: the love of good food. For the evening, their only interest---in a city and on a street known for the worst of communal rioting---would be to find the best biryani or naan or malpua with rabdi available. It was utopia on earth.
One of those Indian Muslim delicacies beloved during Ramzan was, and is, Zarda, a sweet rice pudding studded with nuts and dried fruits.
Zarda derives its name from "zard" in urdu, meaning yellow, and the rich yellow color of this dish comes from saffron, which also adds a delicate but integral flavor and is quite irreplaceable here.
Zarda falls in the bracket of Mughlai Indian cuisine--food that originated in the kitchens of Mughal invaders from central Asia who went on to rule parts of north India for centuries. The rich cultural influences of the Mughals lingered long after their departure, merging effortlessly with local art and culture (I absolutely have to link here to this gorgeous interactive piece on Mughal miniatures from the New York Times that I hope you'll watch).
While the Mughals' best known legacy in India is arguably the Taj Mahal, their most beloved legacy surely is the food. Mughlai dishes like biryani, malai kofta and naan have merged effortlessly into local cuisine and are synonymous with Indian food today as well as easily accessible at Indian restaurants the world over.
Zarda, although not a common offering at Indian restaurants, is easy enough to make at home, and I'll show you how.
Table of Contents
Ingredients for vegan zarda
- Basmati rice: This is the best rice for zarda because it's fragrant and cooks up in long, separate grains.
- Saffron: This herb is an essential ingredient in zarda, adding both flavor and the distinctive color. Most recipes add food coloring on top of the saffron, but you don't really need to do that if you soak the saffron for a few hours in nondairy milk, which would give you great color. If you don't want to use saffron for any reason, don't replace it with artificial color. Use freshly grated turmeric instead, which would also add a nice fragrance, but use only about a teaspoon or two to avoid making the rice bitter.
- Nondairy milk: A tiny bit, to soak the saffron.
- Coconut oil or red palm oil: I prefer red palm oil in this recipe because it has a nutty flavor and a lovely yellow-orange color that stains the rice and enhances the color of the saffron. But if you don't have it, coconut oil works just as well without the color.
- Ground green cardamom: Cardamom compliments the saffron and is an indispensable ingredient in most Indian sweets.
- Nutmeg: Like cardamom, this is a lovely spice to use in sweet Indian foods.
- Raw cashews: Zarda recipes often incorporate khoya, a reduction of milk, that adds creaminess. The creaminess is lovely, but cashew cream does as good a job as the khoya.
- More nuts: All kinds of nuts work here, including walnuts, pistachios, almonds, cashews and charoli or chironji, a small, round seed with the flavor of almonds that's often used in Indian sweets. You can use one or two kinds or as many as you want. You want a total of half a cup of nuts which might sound like a lot, but remember, this is a shahi dish-- a dish fit for kings.
- Raisins: Raisins, especially golden raisins.
- Shredded, sweetened coconut: Flakes of freshly grated coconut are usually stirred into a zarda but shredded, sweetened coconut (the kind you use to make macaroons) are an easier substitution for most, and work just as well. If you have fresh coconut, use that.
- Sugar: I use vegan cane sugar. Any sugar is fine here.
- Pure vanilla extract: to add more sweetness and round out the flavors.
- Optional ingredient: Rose water.
How to make Zarda
The technique used to make zarda is oddly similar to the one you'd use to make fried rice, although there really is no other similarity between the two dishes.
You boil the basmati rice in lots of water, the way you would pasta, until it's about 90 percent done. Toss it into a wok or a wide skillet with the other ingredients and stir fry it for a bit until all the moisture has evaporated, leaving soft, sweet, beautiful strands of rice behind.
Veganizing a zarda is not very difficult either. But you are taking a key flavor component, ghee, away, so you need to make some thoughtful substitutions.
Ghee flavors a lot of Indian sweets, rounding out their cloying sugariness with an appetizing nuttiness. It is almost impossible to remove ghee from an Indian sweet and expect it to taste just right. But impossible is not a word in my vegan lexicon and to ensure that this vegan zarda is as tasty as any non-vegan version, I make two substitutions: red palm oil, which has a smooth flavor and a brilliant orange color that works really great in helping intensify the yellow in this dish (you can use coconut oil instead), and pure vanilla extract.
Rose water, if you can find the edible kind, is a welcome addition, although not necessary.
Milk in the recipe is easily replaced with nondairy milk. Flakes of coconut are an important flavor ingredient in zarda, and I toss in a handful of sweetened coconut flakes, which work great.
I hope you will try my vegan version of Zarda during the month of Ramadan or any time you feel like a delicious and unique dessert that will transport you to another time. If you do, I'd love to hear!
More vegan recipes for Ramadan
Vegan Zarda
Equipment
- Large wok or skillet
Ingredients
- 2 generous pinches saffron strands
- ¼ cup nondairy milk
- 1 cup basmati rice (soaked in water for 30 minutes)
- ¼ cup raw cashews
- 1 tablespoon coconut oil (or red palm oil)
- ½ cup nuts (chopped cashews, almonds, pistachios, walnuts, etc. A mix or just one kind is fine)
- 2 tablespoon raisins
- 1 teaspoon ground cardamom (divided)
- 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg (divided)
- ¾ cup sugar (most zarda recipes use cup for cup of sugar and rice, but I prefer a little less. Add more sugar if you don't find this sweet enough)
- ¼ cup sweetened coconut flakes or shreds
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon rose water (make sure it's edible. Optional)
Instructions
- Stir the saffron strands into the nondairy milk in a small bowl and set aside. Do this as early as possible, even a few hours before you begin to make your dish, for the best color.
- Soak the cashews in ½ cup water for a few minutes, then blend into a very smooth paste. You can skip the soaking if you have a powerful blender.
- Soak the basmati rice in water to cover for 30 minutes. Put a large pot of water to boil, the way you would for pasta, but don't salt it. Once the water comes to a rolling boil drain the soaked rice and add it to the boiling water. Cook for 7-8 minutes or until the rice is about 90 percent cooked. The grain should break easily between your teeth, but you should feel a bit of resistance at the center.
- Once the rice is cooked, strain it immediately and spread it on a large plate for any remaining moisture to evaporate while you proceed with the recipe.
- Heat the oil in a large wok or wide skillet. Add the raisins and nuts and half the cardamom and nutmeg and saute until the nuts just begin to change color.
- Add the saffron and milk and the cashew cream to the skillet. Let it come to a boil, then add in the cooked rice. Mix well but use a gentle touch as you don't want the rice grains to break or clump together.
- Once the rice and saffron milk have merged and there is no visible moisture in the pot, add the sugar. Stir the rice only very slightly after adding the sugar, don't merge it all completely. Cover the pot and let it all cook over medium-low heat for five minutes, undistubed.
- When you open the pot most of the sugar should have melted and there will be moisture in the pot. Stir fry the rice a bit more until the visible moisture has evaporated and the sugar has glazed the rice. Again, be gentle.
- Stir in the remaining cardamom, nutmeg, vanilla and rose water, if using. Turn off the heat.
- Serve at room temperature or chilled. You can garnish with more nuts and coconut flakes before serving.
Sujatha
Vaishali, thank you for this and all your other wonderful recipes??I
have made quite a few and everything has come out really good ?
Vaishali
Hi Sujatha, thanks so much for the kind words. ❤️