Difference between Biryani and Pulao (Indian pilaf)

Pilaf (US spelling, Turkish), or pilau (UK spelling, Persian) is a rice dish, or in some regions, a wheat dish, whose recipe usually involves cooking in stock or broth, adding spices, and other ingredients such as vegetables or meat, and employing some technique for achieving cooked grains that do not adhere. At the time of the Abbasid Caliphate (third caliphate to succeed the Islamic prophet Muhammad, , such methods of cooking rice at first spread through a vast territory from India to Spain, and eventually to a wider world. The Spanish paella, and the South Asian pilau or pulao, and biryani, evolved from such dishes.

Biryanis and pulaos are popular dishes in countries from India to Turkey. The Turkish pilaf is barely any different from the Indian versions. Biryani's main variants were invented by the Mughals and Nawabs of the subcontinent--which is why we have different recipes from Lucknow, Kolkata and Hyderabad.

Biryani is made using the draining method of cooking--which basically means the rice is par-boiled in water, and then drained, dried and used to layer up. Pulao is made through the absorption method, so the amount of water or stock is completely absorbed by the rice and vegetables in the dish.

Biryani is always prepared in layers, with at least one layer dedicated to meat and another one for fried onions. The ingredients are half-cooked (quite like the rice) separately, then layered. In Pulaos, the veggies, meat and rice are sauteed together, and then cooked with water or stock. Pulao is usually a mixture of either lentils or vegetables, mainly including peas, potatoes, french beans, carrots or meat, mainly chicken, fish, lamb, pork or prawn. A typical Bengali pulao consists of rice, cashewnut, raisin, saffron, ghee and various spices like nutmeg, bay leaf, cinnamon, cardamom, cumin, clove and mace. There are also few very elaborate pulaos with Persianized names like hazar pasand ("a thousand delights"). A pulao is often complemented with either spiced yogurt or raita.

Biryanis are chock full of aromatic spices, with everything from whole cinnamon, cloves, cardamoms to saffron. Pulao is much less heavy on the spices, and usually the white on the rice isn't hued with any other colouring.