We had great weather over the weekend and I thought we are done with winter. But as they say, mid west weather is extremely unpredictable. This week again, we have very cold weather :(.
When I came home yesterday, I wanted something spicy to eat. I was missing home so much. So I thought of making something special for us. It took a while to prepare this, but was totally worth the effort. The biryani was just out of this world.
This biryani is based on my two favorite biryani recipes – Shn’s Egg biryani and my Belgaum style biryani . The spicy paneer pieces take this one to a whole new level.
Ingredients: 1 and 1/2 cups basmati rice 1/4 cup fresh/frozen peas 1 cup paneer cubes 1/4 cup green beans 1 tea spn chilli powder A pinch turmeric powder 3-4 strands coriander leaves Ghee/Oil 1/2 cup yogurt 1 big + 1 small cardamom 1 bay leaf 3 green chillies 1 tea spn ginger 1 tea spn garlic Few strands saffron Salt
Spice powder (grind into powder): 1 tea spn coriander seeds 1 tea spn cumin seeds 5 cloves 1″ cinnamon 1 tea spn poppy seeds 5-6 peppercorns
Method: Add chilli powder, turmeric, 1/2 tea spn spice powder, 2 tbl spn yogurt, salt to paneer pieces and keep aside for 2 hrs. Heat ghee/oil and add cardamom (big and small), bay leaf, washed rice, salt. Fry for 3-4 minutes. Take the rice on a clean plate. Grind green chillies, garlic, ginger into a paste. Add little more oil/ghee, add paneer pieces till they turn brownish. Take them out. In the same pan, add vegetables, ginger-garlic-chilli paste and fry till the raw smell goes off. Add yogurt, little salt and fry for few minutes. Sprinkle chopped coriander leaves and few pinches of spice powder. Spread half the amount of rice. Spread few pinches of spice powder on top and then cover with remaining rice. On top, spread few strands of saffron. Now pour 2 cups water, cover and cook till all water is absorbed. Preheat the oven at 300F for 10mins. Apply some oil to a baking dish. Now add 1/2 the amount of cooked rice mixture. Spread the fried paneer and spread remaining rice on top. Add about 1/2 cup water. Bake in oven at 300F for about 30mins. Cover with aluminum foil. Serve hot.
Serves : 3-4 Preparation time :60mins
Aayi’s pickles are loved by everyone. They are the best and somehow I feel when I make the same pickles, they are not as half good as hers. I don’t know what is it that I miss. I am one of those, who cannot eat her meals without pickles. Lime/lemon pickles are my favorites. Aayi makes a huge batch of them just for me.
When she came here about 1 and 1/2 years ago, she made a huge batch of it for me. Last year when I went to India, aayi asked me if I wanted to take some of her lemon pickle with me. Since I wanted to bring mango pickle, which I cannot make here, I opted for that and I left out lemon pickle.
In December, all the lemon pickle was finished. So now, I wanted to make my own batch. Some of you may think I am crazy to make pickles in winter. But I wanted this immediately. So I brought a big batch of thin skinned lemons and made two kinds of pickles. One yellow and one red. The red kind was from aayi’s pickle recipe . Few days ago, I had tried lemon-chilli pickle by Sanjeev Kapoor. It was one of the best ready made pickles that I have tasted so far. It had white sesame seeds in it, which I really loved. So this pickle recipe was born from these two recipes. I followed aayi’s recipe, left out red chilli powder, used more green chillies and used sesame seeds.
As aayi had instructed, I gave it a good shake once in 15days or so and in about 1 and 1/2 months, both pickles were ready. Yayyy!!!. Finally…I am happy with pickles. They are just like the way I like. I didn’t take step by step pictures this time as all the steps are same as the lemon pickle – except for chillies and the sesame seeds. My spice powder did not become a smooth powder, so you can see some mustard and other pieces in the picture, which should be totally fine.
Last weekend was another pickle weekend at my home. I made two ready to eat pickles – cauliflower pickle and chilli pickle . I also made pineapple paank and some spice powders. My weekday meals are so much easier now because of all these. I had to spend about 3-4 hrs on the Sunday morning to get all these ready.
Two pickles on my to-do list this year – Manisha’s lemon and lime pickles. Last year, I missed them in summer, I was just too lazy.
Ingredients: 3 cups lemon/lime pieces 1 tbl spn ginger 1/2 cup chopped green chilies 1 tbl spn sesame seeds 2 tbl spns mustard seeds 1/2 tea spn methi seeds 1/2 tea spn asafoetida 1 tea spn turmeric 2 and 1/2 tea spns oil 1/2 cup salt
Method: Cut the lemon/lime into small pieces. Chop the chillies into about 1/2″ pieces. Heat 1 tea spn oil and fry mustard seeds, fenugreek seeds, asafoetida on a medium heat. Take care not to burn any of these. Mustard turns really bitter when it gets burnt, so be careful. Take off heat and add turmeric powder. When it is cooled to room temperature, grind it to a smooth powder. Add the above powder, salt to the lemon pieces and mix well. Heat little oil and fry ginger and green chilies for 2-3 mins. When it is cooled to room temperature, mix this with the lemon pieces. Take care to mix this when it comes to room temperature. If this is mixed when hot, the pickle gets spoiled soon. Heat about 1/2 tea spn oil and add sesame seeds. When they start popping, take off the heat and cool them to room temperature. Add these to pickle. Store this in an airtight container. Leave it as it is for about 15days. Then open the container and see if the pickle is fine. Close the lid again and leave it for about 45 days. As the pickle gets ready, the lemon pieces get softer. This time largely depends on the kind of lemon/lime used.
PS: – Use hot chillies, if the chillies are mild, increase the amount of them in the pickle. – To speed up the pickling time, some people boil the pieces and make the pickle. By boiling them, pickle gets ready within 4-5 days, but it does not usually have very long shelf life. Also, the Vitamin-C content in the lemon/lime gets lost. I personally prefer this slow pickling process where the pieces are not boiled. – While making the pickle, make sure all the vessels, spoons, grinder/mixer are very dry. Even a small drop of water makes this pickle spoil soon. Even while serving the pickle, make sure the spoon you put in this container is very dry. Better yet, transfer small quantity in a smaller container which can be used to serve. – As I mentioned earlier, the spices should NOT get burnt while frying. While making my last batch, I accidentally burnt some of the spices and the pickle became very bitter and I had hard time to finish it off. – Any pickle should taste salty when it is prepared. The salt gets absorbed by the pieces as time passes. If it tastes just perfect when the pickle is prepared, it gets spoiled soon. – Use limes or lemons that has lots of juice. – If you think this much salt is too much, add about 1/3 cup initially and then add more if required.
