One Pot Biryani

One Pot Biryani

You know what I would really like? I would like to make biryani the old fashioned way.

I love watching food channels. One of the shows was about Kareem’s near Jama Masjid. I have been to the original Kareem’s. It is a small little place in the bye lanes near Jama Masjid. It has the most amazing biryanis. In the show they showed us how they make biryanis still following the age old traditions. Their day starts at 4 in the morning when the marinated chicken or meat is layered along with the rice, kept in huge handis and then sealed close. The handis are then surrounded by hot coal. A lot of coal is also placed on the lid. The handis are left to cook this way for hours. The heat from the coals is not direct and the biryani is cooked in its own “dum”. That is how they get that awesome taste.

This method is very difficult to replicate in our modular kitchens. You need lots of open space, hot charcoal in large quantities and lots of time. Since time is a luxury now-a-days we always look for short cuts. Something that would not take too much time and effort. This One Pot Biryani is just right for those busy days.

Ingredients

700 gms chicken, boneless

1 tbsp ginger garlic paste

1 tsp salt

2 dry red chillies

2 bay leaf

1 javitri

1 tsp black pepper

2 green cardamoms

1” cinnamon

4 large onions, sliced fine

1 tbsp chopped ginger

1 tbsp chopped garlic

3 potatoes, cubed

4 tbsp biryani masala

½ cup curd

Salt to taste

2 cups long grained rice, washed and soaked.

Wash the chicken. Apply ginger garlic paste, curd and salt and keep aside. 

Heat some ghee. 

Add the dry red chillies, bay leaf, javitri, black pepper, green cardamom and cinnamon. 

Add the chopped ginger and garlic and saute till a fragrant aroma rises. Add the cubed potatoes and fry well. 

Add the sliced onions and cook till the onions are translucent.

 Add the biryani masala and curd and cook till oil starts leaving the sides. Add the chicken pieces and cook well on high flame. 

Cover and cook till the chicken is half done. Add the rice and 2 cups of water. Boil on high flame till almost all the water has evaporated. Lower the flame to sim, cover and cook till the rice is done.

Egg Biryani

Egg Biryani

There are days when thinking of what to make for lunch is the most cumbersome task. These are the days when I take a short cut. The best short cut is a biryani. 

I have tried out many chicken and mutton biryanis and so this time I decided to make Egg Biryani. It is a simple process and pretty quick to make. If you want you can make it in the “dum” style. But like I said..this recipe is for lazy days and doing the “dum” process is simply too much work.

Ingredients

5 hard boiled eggs

1 ½ cups long grain rice, washed and soaked

3 onions sliced fine

1 large onion, sliced fine (for making barista)

2 tomatoes, sliced fine

1 tbsp ginger paste

1 tbsp garlic paste

1 tsp cumin seeds

1 star anise/phoolchakri

4 tbsp curd

2 tbsp coriander powder

1 tbsp cumin powder

1 tsp turmeric powder

½ tsp red chilli powder

Salt to taste

First make the barista.

Heat ½ cup oil to smoking point and then put in the sliced onion. Fry till the onions are well browned. Keep aside.

In the same oil fry the boiled eggs. Keep aside.

Add cumin seeds and star anise to the hot oil. Add the ginger and garlic pastes and saute.

 Add the 3 sliced onions and cook till the onions are pink and translucent. 

Add the tomato, cover and cook till the tomatoes are done. Add the cumin powder, coriander powder, turmeric powder, red chilli powder and salt. 

Once the masalas are well cooked add the curd and saute well.

 Now add the soaked rice, eggs and browned onions. 

Add 3 cups of water and boil on high flame. 

Keep cooking on high flame without a lid till the water is almost evaporated. Now turn the flame to low, cover with a lid and cook till the water evaporates completely and the rice is well cooked. You can garnish the dish with chopped coriander leaves. 

Murg Noormahal Biryani

Murg Noormahal Biryani

Recipe source : Sanjeev Kapoor’s The Yellow Chilli Cookbook

Its biryani time again. I am still in search of the elusive perfect biryani.

The best biryani I have eaten till date has been at Tunday Kababis in Lucknow. Now that is one city I really fell in love with. What’s not to love? It has chicken of both varieties, the eating kind and the wearing kind.

One of our road trips was from Delhi to Lucknow, then Benaras and back to Delhi via Kanpur. This was one axis we hadn’t explored. Driving through the fields of UP was a journey of its own. There are still large pockets in this country which are yet unexploited. There is no commercialisation of the land. People still live the old fashioned way. The fields are still green with crops and not grey with concrete.

Coming back to biryanis. We went in search of the original Tunday Kababis in the bylanes of Lucknow. GPS helped to an extent and later we had to rely on the trusty old rickshaw wallas to take us to the exact spot. It is a small eating joint tucked away inside a small gali. But the crowd there was a testimony to the “lazeez” taste of their chicken and mutton dishes. We had to wait for 20 minutes before we could get a table. Yet every second of the wait was worth it. Ever since that trip I have been yearning to get back and have that plate of biryani once again.

I came across this recipe in Sanjeev Kapoor’s The Yellow Chilli Cookbook. I made some changes to suit home cooking. I have omitted all the butter and cream.

Ingredients

For the rice

2 ½ cups basmati rice, washed and soaked

4 green cardamoms

2 black cardamoms

1 bay leaf

4 cloves

½ tbsp. rose water

2 tsp. lemon juice

1 tbsp salt

For the chicken

750 gms chicken, cut into pieces

¼ cup ghee

1 tbsp shah jeera

4 cloves

7 green cardamoms, crushed

1” cinnamon stick, crushed

2 onions, sliced

1 onion sliced (for browned onions)

4 green chillies, slit

1 tbsp ginger paste

1 tbsp garlic paste

2 tbsp biryani masala

½ tsp turmeric powder

½ tsp red chilli powder

 1 tsp coriander powder

¾ cup yogurt

Chopped coriander leaves

1 tbsp lemon juice

1 tbsp kewda water

First prepare the rice. Wash and soak the basmati for 15 minutes. Boil 5 cups of water with green cardamoms, black cardamoms, bay leaf, rose water, lemon juice and salt. Add the rice and parboil it. Spread the rice on plates to dry it a bit.

Meanwhile prepare the chicken. Heat some oil. Add the sliced onion and brown it nicely. Drain and keep aside.

Heat the ghee. Add the shah jeera, cloves, green cardamoms and cinnamon. 

Then add the sliced onions and fry nicely. 

Add the slit green chillies, ginger paste and garlic paste and saute for a minute. 

Add the chicken, salt and biryani masala. Increase the heat and fry for a minute. Add the turmeric powder, red chilli powder and coriander powder. Cook for a few minutes. 

Add the browned onions (leave some for garnishing) and cook some more. 

Now add the curd, lemon juice and kewra water. Cover and cook till the chicken is almost done.

Take a big pan or patila. Apply some ghee on the bottom. Now layer the rice and chicken. Spread some chopped coriander leaves on each layer. Spread browned onions on top. 

Put the lid on and seal with some dough. Place the pan/patila on a tava and cook on low heat for an hour. 

Murg Yakhi Pulao

My love for food is evident in my choice of television shows too. Masterchef, Hell’s Kitchen, Cake off, Highway on my plate, Kacha Rasta, Rachel Allen Bake, and so on and so forth. Even my son knows my fondness for these shows and he puts reminders on for them.

One such show that has recently started is “Farah Ki Dawat”. When I saw the promos on television I thought “really!! Is she a cook?” This clearly was more of a advertisement gimmick than a true blue cookery show. But I didn’t realise then that each show calls for a lot of research and if a certain production house is starting a cookery show they must have collected some good recipes. The hostess might be just a face of the show but there can be a lot to learn.

In one such episode she prepared Murg yakhni Pulao. I wasn’t watching the show really. It was just one of those moments when the tv is on and you are doing ten different things. What caught my attention was the fact that she used potatoes in the dish. Now biryani/pulao and potatoes is a very Bengali preparation and my son loves those big chunks of potatoes long with the chicken.

I prepared this dish for my son one day when he was not feeling well. He wanted something light but it had to be chicken. That is when I remembered the show. I didn’t remember the exact recipe but I improvised and kept it very light. The main flavour comes from the chicken stock. This is called the yakhni. There are no strong spices and food colouring. I have just used a little garam masala. Generally the stock is made by boiling the chicken. Yet I feel that doing so makes the chicken a bit dry. What I have done is cut boneless strips from the chicken and used the bones, wings etc for the stock. Do try making the Yakhni Pulao this way.

 

Ingredients

1 chicken ( cut boneless strips and reserve the rest)

For the yakhni

1 onion, quartered

4-5 garlic pods

1 tbsp ginger juliennes

1 bay leaf

1 javitri/mace

2 black cardamoms

2 green cardamoms

2 tbsp whole coriander seeds

2-3 cloves

10 peppercorns

1” cinnamon

1 tsp nutmeg powder

1 tbsp salt

For the pulao

1 ½ cups basmati rice, washed and soaked

2 potatoes, quartered

1 tsp cumin seeds

2 onions, sliced fine

2 tomatoes, sliced fine

1 tbsp ginger paste

1 tbsp garlic paste

1 cup curd

1 tbsp garam masala powder

Salt to taste

Wash and soak the rice as you start working on the dish.

Take 4 cups of water in a pan and add the yakhni masalas and the reserved chicken pieces. Boil for 20 minutes.

Meanwhile start with the pulao. Heat some ghee. Add the cumin seeds.

 Add the ginger and garlic paste. Saute. Then add the sliced onions. Cook till the onions brown. 

Add the quartered potatoes and fry on high heat. Lower heat and add the tomatoes and cook till they become mushy. 

Add the garam masala and salt. Now add the curd. Stir for about 5 minutes. 

Add the chicken pieces. Cover and cook for 5 minutes. 

Now add the soaked rice and the yakhni stock. 

Bring to a boil, cover and simmer till all the liquid evaporates and the rice is cooked properly.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Soya Biryani

Soya Biryani

I love biryani. I have tried chicken, mutton, fish and mix veg biryanis. So I decided to try out this soya biryani. 

Traditionally biryani is a non-vegetarian dish made of chicken or mutton. The concept of layering and cooking on dum was that the juices from the chicken/mutton would make the rice tastier. 

However soya does not have any taste of its own. So layering the biryani would be a moot point. This made the biryani simpler and less time consuming as I did away with the complex step. 

My family turns vegetarian on Tuesdays which is a major sore point for my son who wants chicken every day. I have to make something different to entice him to eat. The soya biryani was tasty enough to make him happy.

Ingredients

2 cups rice, boiled
3 cups soya granules
1 bay leaf
3 green cardamoms
2 brown cardamoms
2 dry red chillies
1’ cinnamon
1 tbsp peppercorns
2 onions, chopped
2” ginger, minced
6 garlic, minced
2 green chilies, chopped
5 tbsp tomato puree
1 tbsp coriander powder
1 tbsp garam masala
1 tsp cumin powder
1 tsp turmeric powder
 Salt to taste

Soak the soya granules in hot water for half an hour. 
Heat some ghee. Add dry red chilies, bay leaf, green cardamoms, brown cardamoms and cinnamon. 
Add the ginger, garlic and green chilies. After a minute add the chopped onions. Sauté for 2 minutes.
 Add the tomato puree and cook till the oil separates. 
Add the coriander powder, garam masala powder, cumin powder, turmeric powder and salt. 
Fry till the masalas are well cooked. 
Drain the water and add the soya granules. 
Sauté on high flame for few minutes. Add some water, cover and cook for 10 minutes. The soya mix should be dry. Add the boiled rice and mix well. Cover and cook for two more minutes so that the rice and soya is well mixed. Your Soya Biryani is ready.

Mutton Dum Biryani

Mutton Dum Biryani

I am still in search of the perfect biryani, whether chicken or mutton. I have tried various recipes but that perfection still eludes me. For this recipe I read up many recipes on the net and tried an amalgamation of my own. 

Ingredients

500 gm mutton, cubed
4 onions, sliced fine2-3 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp fennel seeds
2-3 tsp coriander seeds
1 tsp pepper corns
2 star anise
2-3 mace
2-3 brown cardamom
3-4 green cardamom
1 cinnamon stick
8-10 cloves
1 cup curd
1 tsp turmeric powder
1 tbsp Kashmiri red chilli powder
salt to taste
1/2 cup chopped coriander leaves
2 cups basmati rice
1/2 cup ghee


First, wash the basmati rice well and leave it to soak for 1 hour so that the kernels soak well.
Heat some oil well and fry the onions till brown. 

Dry roast fennel, coriander, peppercorn, star anise, mace, brown cardamom, green cardamom, cinnamon and curd. 

Grind it into a fine powder. Take half the browned onions and crumble them a bit. 

Marinate the chicken with the crumbled brown onions, curd, dry masala mix, salt, turmeric and red chili powder for 2 hours. 

Meanwhile parboil the rice with 1 tbsp salt. spread out the rice on two plates to dry them a bit. 
Heat the ghee in a pressure cooker. Add the marinated mutton and saute on a high flame. Close the cooker and cook till two whistles. 
Now take a heavy bottomed pan. Spread a layer of rice. Then spread the mutton and a layer of browned onions. Put another layer of rice and then a layer of browned onions. Spread the coriander leaves. Close the lid and seal with kneaded dough. You can either put it on the flame directly or you can put it on a tava so that it doesn't burn.

 Cook for 2 hours and the mutton will cook in its own dum.