Vegetable Biryani

Even though my husband strongly contends that vegetable biriyani is not really a biriyani, I don’t agree. We have a lot of vegetarian friends and I frequently make this for them. One of them asked me for the recipe, so here you go…

Ingredients

1. Basmati rice -500 gms (washed and soaked in water for at least 30 mins)
2. Onion - 1 large thinly sliced
3. Ginger paste - 1 tb spoon
4. Garlic paste - 1 tb spoon
5. Carrot - 3 large
6. Potato - 3 medium
7. French bean - 10/15
8. Frozen or fresh peas - 1/2 a cup
9. Coriander leaf -1 cup chopped
10. Mint leaf - 1 cup chopped
11. Green chili - 5/6
12. Curd / plain yogurt - 2 cups
13. Whole garam masala – (2 clove, 2 cardamom, 1 inch cinnamon stick)
14. Vegetable biriyani masala- - 1 packet (Available at Indian stores)
15. Lime - 1
16. salt
17. Sugar
18. Oil -3/4th cup

Procedure

Getting the vegetables done

1. Take a frying pan and pour the oil. Deep fry the onion slices till brown. Remove them from the oil and keep aside.
2. Now in a  pan take 1/2 the oil you used for frying the onion. Heat it and add the whole garam masala.
3. Add carrot, beans and potato. Sauté it for a while. Now add ginger garlic paste and salt to it.
4. Fry till the raw smell goes away.
5. Pour 1 cup of yogurt to it and add biriyani masala.
6. Fry it till all the vegetables are coated with the spices.
7. Now add the chopped coriander, mint leaves and green chilies and cook it for around 5 mins.
8. Now your vegetable biriyani masala is ready. Keep it aside and lets get prepared to make the rice.

Getting it all together

To make the biriyani you need wide bottom pan/pot with a tight lid so that all the great aromas don’t escape. The pan should also have a thick bottom layer, so that the rice inside don’t burn easily. I use Martha Stewart glass top pots, something like the one in this amazon link . Other alternatives include Futura pots available in India. In the worst case you can attempt the messier option of taking a normal handa and lid and seal the lid with atta/maida dough. However, I strongly recommend investing in a good pot, it comes in handy for various types of cooking.

1. Boil water in the pan and add the soaked rice. Once you add the rice the water will stop boiling. Wait  till it starts boiling again. It will take around 3-4 mins . Now drain the water.
2. Keep the rice aside.
3. In the pan make a layer out of the vegetable masala (sautéed vegetables we made above) and add the rest of the yogurt over it. Cover it up with a layer of rice. Sprinkle fried onions and salt over it.
4. Now again make a layer of sautéed vegetables followed by the layer of rice. Add some mint and coriander leaves.
5. Cover the pan up tightly so the steam doesn't escape and put the vessel in a very low flame for 30 mins.
6. Your vegetable biriyani should be ready by this time. Mix it well and serve with raaita.