Chettinad Mushroom Pulao is a flavorful, spicy , one pot recipe made with mushrooms, jeera rice ( seeraga samba rice) and spices.
I love Mushroom's a lot and I often make many recipes out of mushrooms. Few of my favorites are Butter Garlic Mushroom , Burnt Garlic Mushroom Fried Rice , Creamy Mushroom Soup , Mushroom Pepper Masala and Mushroom Scrambled Egg
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About this recipe
Chettinad is a place in Tamilnadu , South India . It is famous for it's wide variety of spicy food. I was living in Tamilnadu for couple of years and got familiar with their food culture . It was around 2 decades before I learnt this quick and easy recipe from my cook in Chennai who was from Chettinad. They call this as Kalan Biryani . As I'm very skeptical about using word Biryani to any kind of one pot recipe , I prefer to call it has Mushroom Pulao rather than Mushroom biryani as it is cooked in a pressure cooker.
You can make this biryani / pulao either on open pan , pressure cooker or instant one pot . It's one and the same all it varies in only cooking time.
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Ingredients , Tips and Variations
Mushrooms : Select fresh button mushrooms to make this recipe. Always wipe and rinse mushrooms just before making . If rinsed mushrooms sits for long, it absorb all water like a sponge. You can use shiitake mushrooms along with button mushrooms in this recipe to make chettinad style mushroom pulao
Rice : Generally Seeraga Samba aka Jeera rice variant is used to make this cheetinad style pulao. Seeraga Samba is a flavorful small grain rice. If it's not available you can use Ambemohar , Zeera rice ( west bengal) or Basmati rice can also be used.
Coconut Milk : Chettinad or any South Indian recipes are incomplete without fresh coconut or coconut milk. Adding coconut milk to this recipe gives lots of flavor to this pulao. You can either extract fresh coconut milk or use coconut milk from tetra pack . But freshly extracted coconut milk adds lots of flavor.
Spices : A special blend of freshly roasted spices gives aroma and flavor to this recipe. So don't skip to roast and add spice powder here. Other spices includes red chili , coriander ,turmeric powder and salt to taste is added.
Fat : I have used vegetable oil and clarified butter in this recipe. As ghee / clarified butter add lots of taste in any rice preparation. For vegans, replace ghee with any vegetable oil.
Other ingredients : Onion , Garlic and tomatoes are also used in this recipe.
Herbs : Coriander leaves, mint leaves , ginger , green chilies and lime juice.
How to make Chettinad Mushroom Pulao
Preparations
Rinse seeraga rice ( jeera rice -small grain rice) couple of times and soak for 30 minutes.
Wash 200- 250 grams of button mushooms , slice them ans set aside. Thinly slice 2 medium size onions ,chop 1 medium to large size tomatoes and set aside. Clean greens , chop and set aside.
In a pan, dry roast mace, cardamom, peppercorns, cinnamon sticks, cloves, black stone flower, fennel seeds and shahi jeera till aromatic.
Don’t brown spices, immediately transfer the spices into a blender or a plate, let it cool down. If you keep the spices in the same pan after roasting, the heat in the pan may further brown the spices, so it’s important to transfer the dry roasted spices into another plate.
When spices cool down blend roasted spices into a semi fine powder.
Transfer the spice powder into a bowl and set aside.
In the same blender, add 2 quartered onions, 10 medium size garlic cloves, 1-1.5” inch ginger, 3-4 green chillies.
Blend to a smooth paste.
To make Chettinad Mushroom Pulao in a Pressure cooker
Take a pressure cooker, heat oil and ghee together. For vegan, you can skip ghee/ clarified butter and use only vegetable oil.
Add Bay leaf and 10 -12 cashews, fry till cashews turn golden brown.
Now add in onion garlic ginger paste and sliced onions and fry till raw smell goes off completely. It takes approximately 3-4 minutes on medium heat.
Add chopped mint and coriander leaves, mix well everything.
Now add turmeric powder, red chili powder, coriander powder and blend spice powder, mix well everything. Spices mix well with oil and moisture from onions and greens , this prevents burning of spices.
Tip in chopped tomatoes and mushrooms, give a quick saute for 1-2 minutes.
Let rawness of mushroom and tomato goes off, no need to soften mushroom here.
Now add in 1 cup coconut milk (medium thick , not thick nor thin ) . Mix well everything.
Add 1.5 cups of hot water.
Now add soaked rice, stir once everything.
Add salt to taste. When it starts to bubble and boil, cover pressure cooker lid and cook on medium heat for 1 whistle.
Allow pressure to settle down on its own. Remove whistle weight from pressure cooker lid and then remove the pressure cooker lid.
Add 2 tablespoon of chopped coriander leaves and freshly squeeze lime juice.
Mix well everything .
Serve Mushroom Pulao with carrot or potato raita.
Recipe Card
Chettinad Mushroom Pulao | Mushroom Pulao Recipe
Ingredients
For Spice powder
- 1 small strand Mace - javitri
- 1 teaspoon Black peppercorns
- 3 no’s Green cardamom
- 3-4 2 " inch Cinnamon sticks
- 3 Cloves
- 1 pinch stone flower / dagad phool
- 1 teaspoon Fennel Seeds
- ½ teaspoon Shahi Jeera
For Masala Paste
- 2 Onions - medium size
- 10 cloves garlic
- 1 inch piece ginger
- 3 Green chillies
Other ingredients to make Pulao
- 1.5 tablespoon vegetable oil
- 1.5 tablespoon Ghee - clarified butter
- 1 Bay leaf
- 2 onions - finely chopped
- 10 cashew nuts - broken
- ¼ cup coriander leaves - chopped
- ¼ cup mint leaves - chopped
- 1 Tomato - medium size chopped
- ½ teaspoon turmeric
- 1 teaspoon red chilli powder
- 2 teaspoon coriander powder
- Salt to taste
- 200 grams button mushrooms - sliced
- 1 cup Coconut milk
- 1.5 cups Jeera Rice - seeraga samba, soaked for 30 minutes
- 1.5 cups Hot water
Garnishing
- 2 tablespoon chopped coriander leaves
- 1 tablespoon Lime Juice
Instructions
Preparations
- Rinse seeraga rice ( jeera rice -small grain rice) couple of times and soak for 30 minutes.
- Wash 200- 250 grams of button mushooms , slice them ans set aside. Thinly slice 2 medium size onions ,chop 1 medium to large size tomatoes and set aside. Clean greens , chop and set aside.
- In a pan, dry roast mace, cardamom, peppercorns, cinnamon sticks, cloves, black stone flower, fennel seeds and shahi jeera till aromatic.
- Don’t brown spices, immediately transfer the spices into a blender or a plate, let it cool down. If you keep the spices in the same pan after roasting, the heat in the pan may further brown the spices, so it’s important to transfer the dry roasted spices into another plate.
- When spices cool down blend roasted spices into a semi fine powder.
- Transfer the spice powder into a bowl and set aside.
- In the same blender, add 2 quartered onions, 10 medium size garlic cloves, 1-1.5” inch ginger, 3-4 green chillies and blend to a smooth paste.
To make Mushroom Pulao in a Pressure cooker
- Take a pressure cooker, heat oil and ghee together. For vegan, you can skip ghee/ clarified butter and use only vegetable oil.
- Add Bay leaf and 10 -12 cashews, fry till cashews turn golden brown.
- Now add in onion garlic ginger paste and sliced onions and fry till raw smell goes off completely. It takes approximately 3-4 minutes on medium heat.
- Add chopped mint and coriander leaves, mix well everything.
- Now add turmeric powder, red chili powder, coriander powder and blend spice powder , mix well everything. Spices mix well with oil and moisture from onions and greens , this prevents burning of spices.
- Tip in chopped tomatoes and mushrooms, give a quick saute for 1-2 minutes. Let rawness of mushroom and tomato goes off, no need to soften mushroom here.
- Now add in 1 cup coconut milk (medium thick , not thick nor thin ) . Mix well everything.
- Add 1.5 cups of hot water.
- Now add soaked rice, stir once everything.
- Add salt to taste. When it starts to bubble and boil, cover pressure cooker lid and cook on medium heat for 1 whistle.
- Allow pressure to settle down on its own. Remove whistle weight from pressure cooker lid and then remove the pressure cooker lid.
- Add 2 tablespoon of chopped coriander leaves and freshly squeeze lime juice.
- Mix well everything and serve Mushroom Pulao with carrot or potato raita.
Anonymous
Thanks for this wonderful recipe, I tried at home and everyone loved it so much . I had packed for my kids lunch box too, it was great 👍. I prepared the spices a day before and used canned coconut milk. It was awesome.Thank you