early 17th century: Persian pulaw, pilāv, Hindi pulāv, from Sanskrit pulāka ‘ball of rice’, probably from Dravidian.
Pulao/pilau 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.
