Today’s lunchbox is Potato biryani and fruits(apple and grapes). Daily I used to add honey to fruits and send in lunch box. But the honey used to become watery and lost its taste. So I gave the whole bottle of honey, which will be kept in office hereafter. (Now I have an extra work of reminding to add honey daily at lunch time :)).
Today my camera was acting strange. I tried my best to take good pictures, but failed. I followed the traditional method of cooking biryani, took pictures of each step. I am planing to write a post on “How to make good biryani”. I must admit, it took a very long time to finish cooking and taking pictures :(.
Few days back I bought ‘Shan’ basmathi rice. A small packet of “biryani mix” was there in this rice bag. Before this, I always prepared biryani by the method I learnt in Belgaum , no biryani mix was used for that. Then my husband said our friend Khawar is an expert in making biryani. So I asked him for the exact procedure that he follows. Though he was very busy, he wrote down each and every step of this recipe in my recipe notebook. I found the method was much easier and slightly different than the one I used to follow. I tried his procedure next time with vegetables and egg (instead of chicken as mentioned by him). It came out so well, that now I prepare biryani once in a week, one week Belgaum method and one week Khawar’s method. Here is Khawar’s recipe.
I will post the exact procedure to make biryanis along with pictures over weekend. The procedure will have the basic steps for making biryanis.
Ingredients: Basmati rice 2 cups Onion(medium) 1 Tomato (medium) 2 Chicken 7-8 pieces or Boiled eggs 2-3 and Vegetables(potatoes, green beans, carrot) 2 cups Shan Biryani masala 1 tbl spn Green chili 1 Oil Biryani color a pinch Salt
I usually make this biryani with vegetables and eggs. The original recipe was for chicken. This also can be made only with vegetables. Be careful not to spill the color anywhere on the cloths or floor. The mark is very hard to remove. A small pack of color came along with the biryani mix.
Method: Add 3 cups of water, one drop oil and salt to rice and cook it till 3/4 th done (do not use cooker for this). Drain water and keep the rice aside. Cut onions into small pieces and fry them in oil until they turn brownish. Add chicken (or vegetables) to it and fry till it changes color. Add chopped tomatoes. Add a little salt, biryani masala(usually the biryani mix contains the whole spices, so I powder them before adding), chili cut into small rounds. Cook till chicken is tender (if using vegetables, do not cook them at this stage). Mix the biryani color in 2 tbl spn water. Heat 1-2 tbl spns of oil, add one layer of the chicken or vegetable mixture(and the boiled eggs if using), this layer should contain about half of the mixture. Cover this layer with a layer of rice(half of the total amount). Spread remaining mixture on the rice. Cover with the remaining rice. (If there is more quantity of rice, increase the number of layers). Spread the biryani color water on top. Add ½ cup of water and cook on a low flame. When it is almost done, keep the vessel on a tava and heat the tava. (this helps in uniform cooking).
Serves : 4-5 Preparation time: 1hr.
