So…finally back with a recipe worth its salt! After scouring various website, of which Tarla Dalal’s gave me the list of ingredients without the method, I finally succeeded in making Mughlai veg biryani. It turned out quite well, if I may say so myself, although my aunt and cousin thought it wasn’t spicy enough. So…here we go!

Ingredients

Uncooked Basmati rice – 1 ½ cups
Carrots – 3 nos.
Beans – 100 g
Potato – 1 medium sized
Tomato – 3 nos.
Onions – 4 nos. (medium sized)
Ginger – a quarter-inch piece
Cloves – 3
Cinnamon – 2 sticks
Poppy seeds – 1 tbsp
Cardamom – 3
Green chillies – 2 large
Turmeric powder – ½ tsp
Chilli powder – ½ tsp
Yoghurt – ¼ cup
Milk – 1 tbsp
Saffron – 4 strands
Ghee – 4 tbsps

Method

1. Chop the carrots, beans and potatoes into fairly large bits. Wash and keep aside.
2. Finely slice two onions and keep aside.
3. Add the saffron to the milk in a small cup and rub until the saffron dissolves.
4. In a mixer, grind the cloves, cinnamon, poppy seeds, cardamom, green chillies, turmeric powder and chilli powder with the other two onions to a fine paste.
5. In a large pan, add 2 tbsps of ghee and heat well. Once the ghee is heated, add the finely sliced onions and fry until they become crisp and caramelized. Remove into a separate dish.
6. Add some more ghee and heat well. Add the paste and fry until the oil starts coming out.
7. Now, add the tomatoes and fry until the tomatoes are well cooked.
8. Once done, add the yoghurt and simmer for 5 mins.
9. Add salt to taste and the rest of the cut vegetables and stir for a minute.
10. Layer a thick bottomed pan (I used a rice cooker) with washed Basmati and add a layer of the prepared gravy. On the gravy, sprinkle half the saffron milk and layer with onions.
11. Now, add the second layer of rice and repeat.
12. Once you have added all the ingredients, add 2 cups of water, shut it with a tight lid and cook on a low flame. This should take approximately 10 minutes. I used a rice cooker and this saved me the worry of burning. Once done, stir well so the rice is well coated with the gravy.
13. Serve hot with onion raitha.

This turned out surprisingly well. I am quite prone to messing up on complicated rice recipes due to pure, unadulterated laziness! This time around, I was quite determined to get it right. And trust me! This dish is well worth the effort!

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