Traditional East Indian Wedding Rice

Wedding rice is a delicious and tasty dish served at most East Indian weddings and special functions. This rich rice goes well with curries, dals and salads too!

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Traditional Wedding rice is so rich and delicious, the fried onions, the raisins, the cashews, the spices, so much flavour and fun. The normal everyday rice or rice with haldi is usually served with a variety of dals, curries, salads, and is used in a few sweet dishes too. But this East Indian dish is extra special, so it gets some boiled eggs too.

Plus, after the boiled grams and potato chops for starters, it’s the perfect accompaniment for corned tongue, beef roast, duck moile, sorpotel, tamriad, and vindaloo. And when made on other days, it goes perfect with beef tongue moilee too!

Have a special occasion coming up? Try this delightful wedding rice recipe and let us know what you think.

What do you need to make East Indian wedding rice?

All you need is rice, onions, raisins, cashewnuts, cinnamon, cloves, bay leaf, ghee, boiled eggs, and salt.

How to make Wedding Rice?

Step I – Cook the rice

Wash and rinse the rice from water a couple of times to remove grit and also to remove any excess starch.

Add water and salt in a steel vessel and bring it to a boil. We usually add water equal to double the quantity of rice. Once the water is boiling, add the rice and boil on a medium flame. 

Stir the rice every now and then so that it does not stick to the bottom and it cooks equally. After about 15 mins, check on the rice. Squish a few grains of rice between 2 fingers to see if it’s cooked.

If it is still a bit hard, let it continue boiling. If it is soft and squishy, that means your rice is ready. Turn the stove off and move your vessel to the sink. Cover the vessel with a lid or strainer, and drain out all of the water. You can add a little cold water while doing this, so the rice does not get sticky. Set aside the drained rice.

Step II – Prepare the onion and cashew nut mixture

This is my favorite part of making rice dishes, caramelizing the onions. Cut the onions into fine slices and set them aside. Keep some raisins and cashew nuts ready by removing any stems from the raisins and separating the cashewnuts into halves.

Heat ghee in a frying pan and add the sliced onions. Fry them till they are golden brown.

Then add in a few cinnamon sticks and bay leaves, and fry till you get a lovely aroma. Some people also caramelize sugar and add, but we don’t need to do that. You can also add cloves if you wish. After this add in the cashews and raisins and continue to fry for a while.

Place the rice in a flat serving dish and decorate with the fried onions and cashew nut mix on the top. You can also add some sliced or halved hard-boiled eggs on the top.

Serve with some pork ukra, vindaloo, sarapatel, roast chicken, or stuffed roast chicken and you’re in East Indian heaven. Wink!

Cooking Tips Or Tricks

• Wash and rinse the rice a few times before you cook to remove any grit or husks. Even if the rice is clean, rinse it to remove excess starch.
• You can add bay leaves or star anise to the water while boiling for additional flavour.
• You can add cloves to the onion, raisins, and cashew nut mix for more spice.
• You might also like the recipes for burnt onion rice, rice with turmeric, three-colored rice, or plain coriander rice.
• You might also love our rice and nut snacks – try the puffed rice in white chocolate, puffed rice in dark choc, or the puffed rice and coconut in dark choc.

Other Recipes You Might Like

• Homemade Corned Beef Tongue
• Cookies shaped like two-colored roses
• Paella, Incan style
• Fried from watermelon rind
• Bhokache Varias – Wedding Bread