Happy New Year! Wishing you all a very prosperous and peaceful year ahead.

Ghee Rice is one of those recipes that is easy to make, loved by almost everybody and very very tasty. An Instant Pot makes an easy job of this recipe with a jiffy cleanup. While I do not use the Instant Pot's saute setting for a lot of heavy duty sauteing like Biryani and the like, for something like this neichoru the Instant Pot saute setting turns out to be just perfect.

I saw this recipe on Sneha Nair's Masala Trail cooking show on Amazon Prime and the immediate thought was to try this out in the Instant Pot. Being the holiday season when everyone is at home some special dishes have to be made don't you think? If you want the youtube video it is here.

Any recipe that is prefixed with Malabar in it is tasty, mouth watering and the ingredients simple but extremely flavorful. This ghee rice is no different. With just a few simple whole spices this dish comes together pretty quickly. Served with a side of chicken curry or egg curry, Sunday lunch can't be any more grand :)

I am completely besotted with my Instant Pot, makes cooking a lot easier, what formally would have required a pressure cooker. Don't get me wrong I love my pressure cooker but my pressure cooker would require to baby sit and pay attention to the time the pressure is coming out and how many whistles etc., While in this Instant Pot it is put and forget it.

Pair the ghee rice with some roasted chicken, it will make your meal all that more special. The recipe for pan roasted chicken is here.


Put the Instant Pot in saute mode (normal) and add in the ghee and when hot add the whole spices followed by the green chilies.

Add in the raisins and cashews and when the raisins start to plump up add in the onions and saute till they start to turn brown.

Drain the soaking rice and add to the onion mixture and mix it in.

Add the required amount of water, close the lid and the put the valve in sealed position.

After the cooking time is done the setting goes to warm, leave it there till the pressure releases naturally.

Once opened fluff up the rice.

Kerala Ghee Rice - Neichoru
Preparation Time: 10 minutes
Cooking Time: 25 minutes
Ingredients

1 cup of Jeeraga Samba Rice or Kalijeera Rice

1 1/2 cups of water

1/2 cup of red onion sliced

4 slit green chilies (seeds removed)

1 tbsp of ginger

1 1/2 tbsp of ghee

1/4 cup of golden raisins

1/2 cup of chopped cashews

salt to taste

whole spices : 2 small sticks of cinnamon, 5 cloves, 3 cardamoms(i did not use)

Method

Wash the rice and let it soak for at least 20 minutes or so. *

Put the Instant Pot in saute mode and Adjust the heat setting to Normal (this has 3 settings less, normal and more). When the Instant Pot flashes Hot add the ghee and let it get hot.

Now add in the whole spices, followed by the green chilies, let cook for a few seconds.

Now add in the raisins and let it plump up, followed by the cashews and let it saute for a minute. **

Add in the sliced onions and saute till they start to turn slightly brown.

Add the ginger and let it saute for a minute more.

Add in the drainer rice and mix it into the onion mixture. Now add in the required amount of water. In my case I am adding a little over 1 cup of water.

Place the lid and put make sure the steam release valve is in the sealed position and use the manual setting (some Instant Pot it is called Pressure Cook setting) and put it to cook for 6 minutes***.

The Instant Pot will go to the warming mode once the cooking is done, let it sit in that setting for about 15 minutes or so. By this time the pressure would have subsided.

Open the lid and fluff up the rice.

Note:*If the rice is soaked the amount of water to be cooked can be reduced, so for jeeraga samba rice add 1 cup of water instead of the normal 1 1/2 cup of water.

**I added the onions before the raisins and the cashews.

***If the rice is soaked, for Basmati Rice 4 minutes is sufficient but for other kinds of rice set to 6 minutes.