Mutanjan

Mutanjan is a variety of Zarda served on Eid, weddings and other special occasions.  Traditional mutanjan is a non vegetarian rice sweet dish but since meat in a dessert gives me the creeps, probably the result of watching too much crime stories. So I am making it without the meat.

Unlike Zarda rice recipe which is uniformly coloured with yellow. Mutanjan has blue, green, yellow and red colours distributed throughout the rice grains which looks really pretty. You can increase or decrease the amount of colour according to your liking.

As far as the topping is concerned you can go crazy by adding candied fruit, nuts, or  small Gulab Jamuns...get the recipe here! Maybe you want to keep it simple by using just some blanched almonds and raisins. In Pakistan they even use edible silver leaf (chandi ka warq) to add extra glamour.

So now you may want to know how to make mutanjan so check out this ingredient list first to get you started.

Ingredients	Quantity
banaspati rice	300g
cardamom pods split open	6-7
vegetable oil	4 tbsp
natural food colour blue, green, red, yellow or coloured sugar	1 tbsp each
blanched almonds	1/2 cup
raisins	1/2 cup
thinly sliced coconut flakes	1/4 cup
gulab jamun and edible silver leaf(optional)	as needed
sugar	400g
water	5 cups
cinnamon sticks	2

Combine the sugar, cinnamon sticks and water in a saucepan and boil until the mixture acquires a medium thick syrup consistency.

Boil the pre-soaked rice in abundant water as per package directions, drain the water and set aside.

 Take oil in  a pot add the cardamom and cinnamon stick fry lightly being careful not to burn the cardamom pods.

Once the cardamom and cinnamon release their aroma add the sugar syrup. Remove from heat before adding the sugar syrup.

Place back on low heat and now add the boiled and drained rice. Add the food colour or coloured sugar as shown in the photo.

Mix lightly, cover and let cook on low heat until the rice absorbs the sugar from the syrup and the colours are distributed throughout the rice. You have to fluff or mix the rice several times in order for the colour to be mixed in the rice grains.

Once the rice has absorbed the sugar syrup you can garnish it with almonds, raisins, candied fruit or even gulab jamuns and edible silver leaf aka chandi ke warq. I hope you will try to make Mutanjan recipe someday. Happy cooking!