Wash and peel the onions, slice the onions long and thinly, keep aside.

Wash the rice very well and soak in water for about 15 minutes.

After 15 minutes of soaking in water, rinse the rice again, drain off the water and keep aside separately in a bowl.

In a pan, heat 2 tablespoons of ghee, add salt and saute the chopped onions until the onions are golden brown in color.

Take about half of the sauteed golden brown onions and keep aside.

Saute the remaining onions until the onions are caramelized, which we will use later for garnishing the jeera rice.

Heat one tablespoon of ghee is a large pan, and lightly fry the cinnamon sticks, bay leaves, cloves, star anise and cardamom pods.

Add the cumin seeds to the pan and lightly fry until the cumin seeds are lightly browned.

Add the minced onions and lightly fry.

Add the ginger garlic paste and mix everything well, saute for another 1 minute.

Add the sauteed golden browned onions to the pan and mix everything well.

Add the rice to the pan, add enough salt and also the remaining one spoon of ghee and mix everything well.

Keep in low to medium heat and stir fry the rice for about 1 to 2 minutes until the rice is well coated with the ghee and spices.

Add the water, stir well (check the salt now) and bring the mixture to a boil by keeping the heat on high.

When the mixture starts boiling, stir well and close the pan with lid.

Cook in very low heat for about 10 minutes or a couple of minutes more until the rice is cooked and water is all absorbed.

After 10 minutes of cooking, open the pan and see if the rice is completely cooked, if not you may cook for a couple of minutes more as I mentioned above until the water is all absorbed. If the rice is completely cooked and if there is any more water left, keep the pan open and cook for a couple of minutes more until the water is all evaporated.

Keep the pan away from heat and keep it closed for another 10 minutes. After 10 minutes, you can gently mix in the rice using a good quality spatula which will help with rice not sticking to each other. If you are not planning to serve the rice soon, allow it to cool down for few more minutes and then gently stir once more.

Finally, add the caramelized onions to the pan, you may mix this caramelized onions with the jeera rice, which will enhance the flavor of the rice, or you can add this as a topping for garnishing, do as you please!

Add the cilantro leaves (coriander leaves) too to the top of the rice for garnishing.

Serve the jeera rice with raitha and any vegetarian curry or Indian dal fry as you wish.