Mutton Yakhni Pulao - a Soothing Meal Perfect for Eid

⭐ My ultimate tips for the best Yakhni Pulao

Select a premium quality extra long grain basmati rice

A hill I'm willing to die on. The impact a premium basmati rice has on your cooking is so huge! For me, a fluffy, tender platter of Yakhni Pulao instantly brings pride, life and joy to my celebration spread. Ensuring you've selected a reliable, high quality basmati rice like Veete Mega Premium Extra Long Basmati Rice is a sure-fire way to ensure your rice does justice to all the love and time you pour into your cooking.

Whole spices > powdered spices for fluffy rice

We want fluffy rice with individual grains, and powdered spices just weigh your rice down, making them gritty and speckled. Traditionally, Yakhni Pulao is made with whole spices that beautifully infuse into the meat and rice without adding bulk or texture. I highly recommend using a spice infuser like this, or a clean permeable cloth (a potli) to hold the whole spices, so you don't need to laboriously strain out the whole spices.

Select the right mutton

Bone-in meat is what's used traditionally in Yakhni Pulao. Yakhni is a broth - and what broth is made using boneless meat? The bones hold a ton of deep, mature, glorious flavour that cannot be replicated with boneless meat. And we could talk for days about the nutrition profile bone broth brings to the table and how ideal that is post Ramadan if you've been a fiend for pakoras, like me.

Pay attention to your onions!

Honourable mention to the onions too because they are SO important in dictating the colour of your rice! In my Pulao tips post, I talk about how the onions are like a dye for your rice, and so the deeper you fry them, the deeper the hue and flavour of your rice will be.

Lightly fried onions = sad, beige Yakhni Pulao with limp lifeless slivers of onions scattered through. Burnt, overdone onions = overly dark, bitter rice.

We're aiming for thinly and evenly sliced, golden brown onions and to get there, we need to spend some time TLC-ing them over the stove as we fry them.

🥘 Method

We start the Yakhni Pulao with the broth. Preparing this is a simple affair - in a deep, lidded pot, add your mutton, spices including salt, fresh garlic, green chilli (if using) and water (quantities specified in the recipe card at the bottom). Bring this to a rolling boil over a high heat, then cover with a tight fitting lid and cook over a low heat for 1.5 hours, or until the mutton is cooked through and soft, but still holding itself up. We definitely want to avoid the 'falling off the bone' stage.

Whilst the broth is cooking, wash your rice under running water - I do this by putting my rice in a colander and running cold water over it, until the water runs clear. Use your hands to gently swish the rice around as you wash it - this is essential to ensure you get all the starch out.

Once washed, place your rice-filled colander into a large bowl with enough cold water to submerge the rice. Allow the rice to soak for a minimum of 30 minutes and upto 90 minutes. Drain the rice before cooking with it.

Once your broth is cooked and the rice has been soaked for the times stated, we're going to bring out another pot to combine everything together.

Heat some oil or ghee in the new pot, and once hot, add finely sliced onions. Fry over a medium to high heat, keeping a close eye on them to ensure they brown evenly. You'll need to stir often, particularly once they begin to catch some colour. You want to get your onions to a dark golden shade, as shown below. Adjust the heat to a lower setting if you feel like they are browning unevenly, or becoming too dark too quickly.

This is where things can get a bit hectic. Now you're going to spoon out the mutton from your pot of broth- a slotted spoon is ideal for this, and then add this alongside your frying onions. See below for how I set this part of the process up (cooking onions are in the back).

Fry the meat alongside the onions until the meat catches colour and the onions turn dark brown.

Now from the pot of broth, we are going to measure out the liquid. Precise quantities are listed in the recipe card at the bottom, and it's very important the quantities are exact to ensure that fluffy rice grain we're after. If you're short of broth, you can use water to get to the right quantity of liquid needed. If you have leftover broth, reserve it for something else.

Bring everything to a rolling boil, then add in your washed and soaked rice. Allow everything to cook over a high heat, folding the rice very gently using a flat spatula or rice paddle, as opposed to stirring or being aggressive. Gently scrape the bottom of the pot too throughout the cook time, to make sure nothing is sticking.

Once most of the water has evaporated but the rice looks moist, as shown below, check the doneness of the rice by spooning a few grains out and trying one. It should feel stiff and not quite ready - about 80% done. This takes between 7-10 minutes but it's imperative you stay close by to keep an eye out because this can vary. Once your rice is at the stage described, it's ready for the final step. If it's still feeling raw and brittle, add half a cup of boiling hot water and continue to cook in this way until the rice is as described above.

Turn the heat down to as low a setting you can get it. Place a tight fitting lid lined with a clean tea towel on top, and allow everything to steam cook for a minimum of 15, and up to 30 minutes.

This is where the magic happens - the rice absorbs the remaining moisture and become dreamily fluffy, the flavours marry into the rice, and the mutton becomes that perfect level of tender.

Once steamed, lift the lid and immediately fluff the rice. To do this, use a flat paddle or even a small side plate, and starting from the sides of the pot, gently wiggle the rice out of place, to loosen it up and allow it some breathing space. Do this for all the rice including the rice at the bottom - this is essential to ensure none of the rice grains become squashed or gummy, particularly the rice at the bottom. Do this even if you aren't serving the rice immediately.

Look at the perfect texture of rice I've gotten, thanks to Veetee Mega's Premium Extra Long Rice!

Mutton Yakhni Pulao is ideally served immediately, and goes beautifully with a salad and green chutney or raita on the side.