In common parlance, kushka food is akin to the eponymous biryani, yet vastly different from it. Biryani is the invader’s import into the potpourri now called Indian cuisine and fairly recent compared to kushka rice defined in the 60,000 years old Indian cuisine text, the Bhagashastra. However, in current day culinary books and restaurants, kushka rice has become synonymous with biryani, the aromatic rice served mostly in South Indian restaurants. Kushka dishes are prepared in an excited and fun way. In the original text of the Bhagashastra, it is eaten using curd, milk, sugar, lemon and the like. Kushka rice cannot be combined with such dishes as dal soup, rasam or kootu which is either tangy or spicy or bitter.

Preparation

Kushka, is a rice dish made with spices, aromatic rice such as the basmati, or small rice such as jasmine or jeera variety and ghee. A present day Kushka is a lunch dish, primarily served with kurma or korma and very popular in Southern India. The spices and condiments used in it could include cardamom, cinnamon, bay leaves, coriander and mint leaves, apart from ghee, ginger, onions. The dish retains the white color of rice even with the light seasoning of spices.

In the Bhagashastra, the Kushka rice dishes uses simpler and authentic ingredients for aroma. For e.g. a recipe described below uses actual fragrant flowers such as the jasmine in the rice preparation, rather than the flavored rice used in modern day recipes.

Kushka rice dishes have to be cooked in such a way that each grain must be separate and not become a solid mass or mushy. The grains should not stick to the finger. The process, as you will notice from the recipes below, requires patience, as they are long, tedious and need a lot of care in their preparation.

Mohasam Kani Kushka

• ½ padi Rice
• 3 veesam 3/16 padi Ghee
• ¾ padi Water
• 5 palam Cream or Milk
• 10 palam Rock Candy or Unrefined Sugar

1. Wash and clean the rice with water and drain it completely. Leave it for sometime.

2. Heat the ghee in a wide pan. Then add the cleaned rice and fry it till it becomes golden brown in colour.

3. Take the water in a vessel which can hold 2 padis of water and boil it. Then add the fried rice, stir it and cook it in a medium flame.

4. The rice granules should be cooked to the right consistency(separate granules).

5. After it has cooked, remove from fire and keep it on a live coal without smoke for sometime.

6. Then transfer it to a clean metal plate. Add the cream of milk and sugar , mix it and serve.

Note: When we heat the milk for more time in a slow flame a thick layer settles on the top which is called the cream of milk.