biriyani / pulao

[Richie111]

Could someone please explain the difference (if there is one) between a biriyani dish and a pulao dish? One Bengali friend of mine said they are defintely different but he's not sure how. Another friend told me he had always thought the two were interchangeable terms but he's not sure. I spent some time looking for the answer but no luck.

Thanks,

Richie

[gingerly]

from a book on pakistani cooking-

'although at first glance the recipes for pulaos and biryanis may seem alike,they have very distinct flavours and personalities.pulaos are the lighter and quicker versions of the biryanis,which are richer(in their fat content and have more spices.

that i think puts it quite well but as with most things there are certainly exceptions.

[bong]

I am certainly no expert, but biriyani is quite different from pulao:

* a "pulao" is made by first lightly frying the rice in ghee so that each individual rice kernel is coated, and then steaming the rice with other ingredients, usually things like nuts or raisins. It can have a slightly sweet taste, not very spicy at all.

* A "biriyani", on the other hand, does not involve frying the rice first. Also crucial to the biriyani is the fact that meat and rice are "layered" on top of each other. A biriyani is usually made with meat, typically goat meat, although there are so called "vegetable" biriyanis as well. Also, in Hyderabad in India, the biriyani is made by cooking the whole thing (meat and rice) in a tightly sealed pan, sealed with dough -- its a form of the so called "dum" method. A biriyani is also usually quite spicy.

In some ways, fried-rice is more similar to pulao than biriyani is to pulao.

I am sure the experts in this forum would probably be much better than me in pointing out the differences.

[gingerly]

ok experts-we know you're out there.we're waiting!meanwhile back to achaya for some dictionary definitions- hmm maybe i should have begun here!

biriyani he says,is'a spicy dish of meat cooked with rice,referred to by this term in the 13 century.numerous variations occur all over india.one is the kacchi-biriyani of hyderabad,with the meat very soft and almost disintegrating into the rice,and irregular patches of yellow saffron colouring.a palao is very similar,and the word itself is of older usage in india.recipes in the ain-i-akbari(a d 1590)show little distinction between a biriyani and a palao.

a palao ,he says is 'a dish of rice cooked with ghee.the word is ascribed to the persian and arabic pilav,pulao and pallao,yet it would have appeared to have found its way long ago into both sanskrit (as pallao-mevach)and early tamil literature of the third to the sixth centuries.ad.biriyani is quite similar to palao,the word being derived from the persian term birinj for rice.

elsewhere he states that a biriyani is said to differ from a palao when the meat takes precedence over the rice.

i think there are so many regional variations including the manner in which rice is handled-to fry or steam or boil with fat..it would be hard to say definitively that one way is particular to the preparation of biriyani and not palao. much as i love hyderabadi biriyani,if a rice dish in tamil nadu with plenty of curry leaf in the seasoning and made with(shock!horror!)rice other than basmati,wants to be known as a biriyani then i won't quibble-provided it's good!

[Vikram]

A pulao is nondescript, a biriani is way over the top. Pulaos are accompaniments, birianis are, unfortunately, often the main course. I can just about bring myself to eat a Huderabadi biriani if I'm in the Charminar area, because the genuine stuff is really quite light and elegant. Most other birianis are just too rich and full of stuff that has no business being there.

Vikram

[gingerly]

A pulao is nondescript, a biriani is way over the top.

at their worst !biriyani suffers from 'if a little is good,a lot must be better' syndrome.since it's usually trotted out on special occasions there does seem to be a tendency to slather on more than the necessary amounts of grease!

[susruta]

In his wonderful book "Lucknow: the Last Phase of an Oriental Culture" Abdul Halim Sharar writes

In Delhi the most popular food was biryani but the taste in Lucknow was more for pulao. To the uninitiated palate both are much the same but because of the amount of spices in biryani there is always a strong taste of curried rice whereas pulao can be prepared with such care that this can never happen. It is true that a good biryani is better than an indifferent pulao for the pulao may be tasteless and this is never so in the case of a biryani. But in the view of gourmets a biryani is a clumsy and ill conceived meal in c omparison with a really good pulao and for that reason the latter is more popular in Lucknow.

Another definition is given by Digvijawa Singh in "Cooking Delights of the Maharajahs." He writes that when rice is cooked in meat or vegetable stock and spies, it is called pulao but when it is first cooked in water and meat and other ingredients are added later in layers, it is known as biryani.

[rummate]

Bong - this discussion on biriyani and pulao urges me to quote a very interesting anecdote by a leading bengali goumet of the name Pratap Kumar Ray:-

"The difference between biriyani and pulao is the same as the difference between an aristocrat refined(bonedi) and a wealthy man(borolok)"

You can put too much of stuff in pulao but a simple biriyani is always more heavenly.

[Monica Bhide]

In his wonderful book "Lucknow: the Last Phase of an Oriental Culture" Abdul Halim Sharar writes

In Delhi the most popular food was biryani but the taste in Lucknow was more for pulao. To the uninitiated palate both are much the same but because of the amount of spices in biryani there is always a strong taste of curried rice whereas pulao can be prepared with such care that this can never happen. It is true that a good biryani is better than an indifferent pulao for the pulao may be tasteless and this is never so in the case of a biryani. But in the view of gourmets a biryani is a clumsy and ill conceived meal in c omparison with a really good pulao and for that reason the latter is more popular in Lucknow.

Another definition is given by Digvijawa Singh in "Cooking Delights of the Maharajahs." He writes that when rice is cooked in meat or vegetable stock and spies, it is called pulao but when it is first cooked in water and meat and other ingredients are added later in layers, it is known as biryani.

I loved the first description. Interesting perspective

[indiachef]

Surprisingly in the Mugal era - Pulao was considered a richer concoction than a Biryani, which was looked as a poor man's food made with left-overs.

How this got reversed is something not many can tell

Personally, I prefer biryani and truly its almost impossible to find a good Pulao. The ones I tried in Persian restaurants are too bland for our spiced tongues

Differentiating between the two is more appropriate in contemporary times. Who knows what its original Recipes were.

One major difference is that a Pulao is a self contained nourishing Rice delicacy, enriched with just about meat and or nuts and spices, but nearly always never hot. Specifically a Pulao is cooked in a Yakhni/Stock.

A Biryani on the other hand has its own ritualistic ways of dealing with the rice and meats either separately or together. The emphasis in a Biryani is to preserve the grain testure of Rice, and umistakenly imparting all fanciful spiced flavors to the meat. Except for a few strands of saffron and a few whole spices, Rice is not heavily pampered.

Again in a Biryani, many prefer to half cook rice with whole spices and use this with the meat mix in alternate layers finishing off in the Dum. Some prefer to cook rice in absorbtion method too.

A Kutchi or Hyderabadi Biryani, uses blanched rice (forget the specific term used), with the marinated meat cooked together on Dum

Indiachef

[BBhasin]

Bravo, IndiaChef, you describe it very well!