Food talk
Pulav perfect

Vadi pulav is different, tasty and easy to prepare, says Pushpesh Pant

Mention biryani and pulav in front of vegetarian friends and you can see them wince and wilt. The reasons aren’t hard to comprehend. There is a paucity of ingredients that can match the texture of fish, fowl or flesh that contribute to the distinctly different delights of myriad non-vegetarian delicacies of this kind.

The navratan is depressing to say the least, kathal is not always available and peas or jeera are, to be brutally frank, pretty plebian. Moti pulav is replicated for the shakhahari substituting lentil or cheese mini-balls for kofta to recreate the magic but seldom succeed, even baby potatoes draped in emerald in chutney pulav more often than not fails to titillate the jaded palate.

Meva pulav, according to us, is a bit of overkill and seeks to overawe with display of riches trying to distract from the want of flavour.

We have quite often settled for a well-made khichdi or tehari over veg pulav. May our compatriots from the south of Vindhyas forgive us, for bleating out the secret that their forays in this field are mostly disastrous? They who make sublime tair sadam, flavourful chitranna, lemon, tomato and ghee rice should stick to these great recipes and not fall for the commercial veg pulav con.

Having got all this off our chest we must concede that man doesn’t live by meat alone and curious souls keep questing for novel recipes in the kitchen. A friend smitten with the idea of devising a better, if not the best, shakahari pulav has come up with the recipe we share with our readers this week. The poor thing has laboured long under the illusion that new recipes are named after their creators like exotic plants and animals to immortalise those who discovered them. We doubt very much if the vadi pulav would do this for him but are reasonably confident that you will enjoy it as something different, tasty and easy to prepare.

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