Yellow rice is a Sri Lankan dish and a must on Sri Lankan party menus. It is ideal to eat with Sri Lankan chicken black curry or devilled chicken curry,  creamy potato curry and Sri Lankan brinjal moju.  When making short-grain yellow rice, non-sticky rice varieties are suitable. If you can’t find keeri samba or a suitable rice variety for yellow rice, take basmati rice. This recipe is for 4 servings. 

Ingredients :

• 1 ½ cup of keeri samba rice, washed and drained 
• 3 cloves of garlic, crushed and chopped finely 
• ¼ cups of onions, chopped
• 1 inch piece of ginger, grated or chopped finely
• 10 -12 black peppercorns 
• 4 cloves
• 1 tbsp of butter or oil 
• 4-5 cardamoms pods, open
• ¼ tsp of turmeric powder
• 1 pandan leaf 
• Some curry leaves 
• 2 cups of chicken broth or vegetable broth (optional)
• ¼ cup of thick coconut milk 
• Some fried cashews (optional) to garnish 
• Salt as per your taste 

Method : 

Wash the rice properly with clean water and set aside.

Make a paste of finely chopped  garlic and ginger. 

Add the butter or oil into a pot, or rice cooker and turn on the low heat. When the butter is melting add cardamom, cloves and peppercorns. Then add curry leaves and pandan leaves. Saute for a few seconds while stirring. 

Next add the ginger garlic paste, chopped onions into it. Keep stirring until the onions become golden yellow. Don’t let them burn. 

After that add the washed and cleaned rice, turmeric powder and mix well. 

Next pour the chicken broth or vegetable broth and coconut milk. And mix well. If you don’t have chicken broth or vegetable broth you can add water instead. 

Add salt as per your taste. 

Cover the pot and let the rice cook until the rice is done. Remove the cardamom pods, pandan leaves and cloves after the rice is cooked. 

You can decorate the rice with roasted cashew nuts if you like.