Biryani

A vegetable biryani. Cooked using a round cast iron enamelled casserole.

Ingredients

1. 3 cups basmati rice (500-600g), add 1/2 cup if more ppl - parboiled basmati works great.
2. 400g sweet potato
3. 2 medium size beetroots (1.5 if large)
4. 5-6 tomatoes
5. Chickpea can 400g, drained and rinsed
6. 250g indian paneer, cut into cubes
7. 2 large onions, finely sliced
8. Cashews, small handful

Oil for pouring over veggies

Mix together well:

1. 6 tbsp oil
2. 1.5 tsp salt
3. 1 1/4 tsp chilli powder
4. 1 1/4 tsp ground cumin
5. 2 tsp garam masala
6. 1.5 lemon juice, freshly squeezed

Coconut coriander sauce

Mix all this in a glass blender:

1. Coconut milk 400g, make sure its not a cheap watered down one
2. Fresh coriander x 2, roughly chopped
3. 2-3 green finger chilli, or one thai birdseyes and 1 normal
4. 6 cloves garlic or ~4 tsp crushed garlica3s
5. 3cm ginger or ~2 tsp crushed ginger
6. 1 tsp salt
7. 1.5 lemon juice, freshly squeezed

Steps

Bake them veggies

1. preheat oven to 200c
2. wash sweet potatoes and beetroot, don’t peel, dice and add to a tray
3. Dice tomatoes and paneer and add to second tray
4. Mix the oil well and spoon over the veggies.
5. Place all the veggies in the oven, with paneer at the top, bake for 40 minutes (check and stir after 20 minutes)

If the cashews are roasted, no need to bake, just add them to the paneer baking tray for the last 5 minutes. If they are raw:

• get a small tray, mix in a tiny bit of the veggie oil and bake for 10-15m minutes.

The other stuff

Once the veggies are in the oven, start on this:

1. wash rice in cold water and leave to soak 5-10 minutes
2. put 3 tbsp oil in casserole and fry onions for 15-20 min until soft, brown and caramelized, stirring regularly. Remove to a bowl and put aside.
3. While onions are cooking, place all the coconut sauce ingredients in a blender and whiz fine. Pour into a saucepan on medium heat and cook for 10 minutes, stirring every now and then
4. Drain rice, cover with cold water and bring it to boil in a deep saucepan, then simmer for 10 minutes, or until rice is al dente. Drain well and leave aside. Don’t cook fully as it will cook a little bit more in the oven later.

Put it all together

Now to layer the biryani:

1. put half the tomatoe/paneer/chickpea mix in the bottom of the biryani dish
2. quarter rice and quarter onions, some of the cashews
3. half the coconut sauce and half beetroot and sweet potatoes
4. quarter rice and quarter onions, rest of the cashews
5. repeat

Save a bit of the coconut sauce to put on top. Make sure cashews aren’t peeking out else they burn,

Now cover the dish and bake for 30-35 minutes

Serve with cucumber + mint raita. (Note: add recipe for that)

And thats all.