Hyderabadi Chicken Biryani, Sokhi style

In all truth, I tried this recipe under the instructions of the gentlemanly Chef Harpal Singh Sokhi from YouTube, but it turned out so well I had to put it here. As Madhu says, the blog needs some ‘meat’ in it too.
My love with Biryani goes back a long way, when we were in Hyderabad and Buwa would bring over packets of the extremely spicy, headily aromatic dish. Back in Nepal, I forgot it for a long time, except when I and Ena had it for lunch in our regular Rajhdhani Restaurant — as expected, nothing to write home about. The latest I had it was when I ordered it from the downstairs Didi’s place, a savior of our growling office-plagued stomachs. She sent over a miniscule amount of gravy-dipped rice which was gobbled up in a minute by everyone in our cubicle. That was what enthused me enough to make my own Biryani, so that I could have oodles of it by myself. And so I did, and though I enthusiastically put in too much rice, I discovered a really easy and delicious dish!

What you need:

Chicken: I used one kg, but for one person, half kg should suffice quite well. Ask for chicken breasts or thighs.
Rice: Basmati, one cup for one person (I used three cups in total, which was a little in excess)
Spices: Two or three each of lwang (clove), sukumel (cardamom), alaichi (black cardamom), marich (pepper), tejpaat (bay leaves), and any other spice you may have a preference for, like jaifal (nutmeg)
Garam Masala: Anything you like, from BMC Meat Masala to Aangan Cardamom Powder
Ginger Garlic Paste: Two teaspoons
Chili Powder: Same as above
Jeera (cumin): One teaspoon
Onions: Two, chopped and browned in ghee
Chilies: To taste
Coriander: One bunch, minutely chopped
Curd: One cup
Lemon: One
Salt: To taste
Turmeric: One teaspoon
Ghee: Four teaspoons
Kneaded dough: One medium sized ball

Preparing the chicken:

Wash the chicken pieces, and place them in a large bowl.
Add the ginger garlic paste, curd, garam masala, chilli powder, half the browned onions and half the coriander. Break the chilies by hand and put them in. Squeeze the lemon juice over it, sprinkle turmeric, and add two teaspoons of ghee.
Now mix the ingredients really well and set the chicken to marinate for half an hour.

The chicken marinate, curd lends it a wonderful texture

Preparing the rice:

Wash the rice twice and let it soak for about 10 minutes.
Place all the spices in a muslin cloth (a piece of an old white quilt cover will do) and tie it up, making a small pouch.

Well, I was never good at wrapping up parcels.

Set two cups of water to boil and soak the pouch in it.
Add one teaspoon of jeera to the water, and salt to taste.
Now put in the soaked rice slowly into the water.
Stir gently for about 8 minutes, until the rice is 3/4th cooked.
Once the rice begins to fluff up and shows signs of crumbling, take it off the stove.
Remove the spice pouch, and drain off excess water in a colander.

The part where we mix the two:

Grease the bottom of a flat karai or pan with a little ghee (a few drops will do).
Place all the chicken as the first layer.
Over it, put half the semi-cooked rice.
Once the rice is layered well, drop in some browned onions, coriander and garam masala.
Place the second layer of rice on top.
Repeat the process of putting in browned onions, garam masala and coriander. Top it off with two teaspoons of ghee.
Divide the dough into four small balls, roll them out and paste them on to four sides of the karai.

Note the dough rolls stuck to the sides

Now put the karai lid or a plate firmly on top of the dough.
Check that no steam escapes.
Let the Biryani steam for 15 minutes on a medium flame, and 10 minutes on a small one.
Wait with plate and spoon as a dizzying aroma spreads throughout the house.
After 25 minutes, remove the lid, slowly stir the chicken pieces into the rice, and devour!

And here it is, all begging to be eaten.

Impromptu pizza from scratch

I am so tired of weighing everything to make western dishes. A cup of this, a teaspoon of that, arghhhh. I wanted cooking to come naturally, the way you never measure the jeera dhaniya when you make kuali ko tarkari. So I just decided to assemble the ingredients and wing it!  And I actually ended up with the best pizza that I have ever made. So here goes an easy pizza recipe for lazy folks like me!

Ingredients in clockwise order:

1. Flour

2. Sugar

3. Water

4. Salt

5. Yeast dissolved in warm water

6. Oil

First of all, take some yeast and dissolve in warm water. Let it stay for five minute while you sprinkle oil, sugar and salt (more sugar than salt) into the flour in reasonable quantities. Finally, pour in the yeasty water as well. Begin kneading the dough. Pour water as and when needed. The dough should be smooth and soft, like for making parathas. Knead it well.

Of course, I still have to vaguely follow the directions for what to do, even if I do not measure the ingredients. So after kneading the dough, lightly coat it in oil. The recipes say to cover it with moist cloth, but since I do not have an unlimited supply of clean rags like my ama does, I make do with paper towels, and it works just great! Keep in room temperature for at least a couple hours. It is desirable to let the dough ferment overnight, but I cooked after  4 hours and it turned out yummy. After a few hours, you can wrap it up in plastic and refrigerate it. It will continue to ferment in the fridge. You can keep it for up to 3 days.

When you are ready to make the piza, start the sauce (yes, we are making everything from scratch, no cheating, i.e., store bought pizza sauce). This sauce is actually so lovely that you might be tempted to finish it before it reaches the pizza :)

First of all, puree some tomatoes. (Ok , you may use canned tomato puree instead of grinding fresh tomatoes). But if you are pureeing fresh tomatoes, add half a chilli pepper too. Trust me on this one, piro pizza is great  :) Set tomato puree to boil in  a pan, adding water if the canned puree is too thick. Add these things to the pan:

1. Ground garlic

2. Salt

3. Sugar (again, more than salt)

4. Just a dash of olive oil

5. Just a sprinkle of ground cheese, preferably parmesan

6. Ground black pepper

7. Oregano leaves

Let the sauce simmer for a few minutes

Use this time to chop up topping. Of course, topping can be anything you want, but here are my favorite vegetarian toppings: pineapple (of course!!!!), spinach, mushroom, onion. 

At the point, preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.

Take the dough in your hand and knead it for a minute. The dough should have risen to double its size, but once you knead it, the size vanishes. Start expanding the dough by hand, slowly increasing its size until you get the desired size and shape. Thickness is important too. I like thin crust pizza and try to stretch the dough as far as I can without breaking it. You can also set the dough on the baking try and then stretch it into shape.

Take your baking tray and line with aluminum foil, that will prevent your tray from getting burnt. Of course, a pizza stone is better if you wanna go all professional, but since I do not have one, I make do with aluminum foil on a normal baking tray.

Line the aluminium foil with flour, so that the pizza doesn't stick tot he bottom. Then place you dough over it. You can continue to shape your dough if it has shrunk or acquired holes in moving. 

 Ladle sauce over the dough. Remember to raise the crust higher than the pizza, else your sauce will run out like mine :P

Sprinkle grated cheese over the sauce, generously. And I mean Generously, completely obscuring the sauce. Mozzarella and Parmesan are recommended, and in my experience, a mixture of them works best. Can't wait to come home and try local Yak cheese, which I am suspecting will work best on our palates. 

Finally, add the toppings. The mistake I made here is putting the spinach on top, which was burnt to a crisp. What I learnt from the experience is to put the fragile items like spinach and mushroom at the bottom, and then sprinkle bulkier items like onions and pineapple on top. You can even add a thin layer of cheese after the delicate topping like spinach, and this method was actually the yummiest because the cheese seemed to be spinach flavored. Though I like to have a LOT of topping, somewhere I read that adding too much topping prevents the bread base from rising. So, use your discretion on this one. 

Finally, slide the pizza into the oven and bake for 30 minutes. Check after 20 minutes though, just to be sure, and if the crust starts turning brown, then it's time to take it out!! Serve hot, or cold! :)

Doesn't this look like the yummiest pizza ever?

I admit it's not round, but who cares? I wanna make yummy pizza, not pretty pizza :)

New and improved tomato rice

This recipe should, by rights, belong to Junkeeri, because she was the one who introduced me to it in the first place. But I love it more than her (tomato rice is my second favorite rice dish, right after masala pulao, and it is definitely on my list of top ten entrees), and over the years I have made it so many times, that I think I can relieve her of its responsibility now :)

Well, anyways, to start with, soak some rice. Preferably basmati (Oh, how I wish I had some basmati). Soak it for an hour or so, or if not, then just soak for as long as is convenient for you. Five minutes is fine if you are in a hurry. The rice should rise a little bit in volume, though not double like bodi. 

Ever since I made biryani with mixed spices, I have been quite taken with spice water. Previously I used just cloves, but this time I used the magic mixture of cloves, cardamom, bay leaves, cinnamon, nutmeg and black pepper. And it gave me the best smelling tomato rice ever! Mix all these spices in water, and boil in low heat  until it is time to put water in the rice. The extra boiling doesn't hurt. If you don't have all these spices, go for basic cloves and cardamom, they are the best!

Aside, chop some tomatoes into quarters. This here is 6 tomatoes for 3 cups of rice. Add in some chilly peppers (this is a new addition. Ever since I had Nigerian tomato rice, which was quite hot, I couldn't let go of the idea of hot tomato rice. And it did turn out to be the best tomato rice ever.) 

Blend this mixture, adding water if necessary to create a smooth brew.

Next, heat some oil in a pan and fry the rice. Fry until the rice changes color and becomes slightly golden. A harder way of knowing if the rice is done is the consistency of the rice. When you first pour it into the oil ,its bunches up in little knots that are hard to stir. But once it is cooked, it becomes as smooth as raw grains and slips easily from the ladle. This is more noticeable in large quantities

When the rice is done, pour the flavored water and tomato puree. Add salt to taste. 

Cover, and stir occasionally until water dries up. The consistency should be dry like pulao's. Once rice reaches this stage, check if it is done, which means tender and edible instead of tough. If not done, add water and repeat process until done. Finally, piping hot tomato rice is ready :) Serve with curries, yoghurt or by itself!

Note: I recently had the good fortune to taste Nigerian version of tomato rice called jollof rice. Though it is cooked differently, the taste is almost the same. Jollof rice is cooked by first frying onions and tomatoes in oil, then adding tomato and chilly puree to the mixture. Finally, par boiled rice is added to the gravy. Since the rice is par boiled, it cooks much faster than  tomato rice. Jollof rice, the way I ate, had no spices other than onions, but a lot of chilly pepper. It was a totally delicious and faster alternative to traditional tomato rice. 

jollof rice

Ingredients

Basic

Tomatoes

Rice

Green Chilli

Salt
Oil

Spices (Optional)

Cinnamon

Bay leaves

Cloves

Cardamom

Black Pepper

Nutmeg

Biryani: not so hard after all :)

Rice

There are 2 parts of biryani: the rice and the sauce. First of all, make the rice. Put rice into the rice cooker with half the water that you would normally use for it. The rice will come out half cooked. I assume par boiled rice works as a substitute of half cooked rice, but I am not sure.

Spice

After putting the rice on, you can concentrate on the sauce. But before that, take all the spices you have, and set them to boil in water. 

This here is cinnamon, cloves, green cardamom, bay leaves, black pepper and a very small pinch of nutmeg powder. Missing black cardamom and saffron. Of course, you can always add the spices to the sauce at a later stage, but boiling them in water for a long time concentrates their flavors, I think. Put more of whatever smell you like most (I overdose on cloves and cardamoms as compared to, say, cinnamon). You can also tie these spices up in a cloth so that you get only pure flavored water in the end. You can either put all the spices in the sauce, or strain the spices and use them for tea :) hehe

Sauce Prep

The next step would be to make the sauce. Cut all the vegetables you have in small pieces. Here is an example of what you can use. Once again, as in dump salad, do not use highly flavored vegetables like bhindi and karela. This here is lettuce, peas and corn, carrots, onions, mushrooms, tomatoes and cauliflowers in clockwise order. 

Note: they don't have to be so cramped. This is just a pose. 

Nuts

Next, heat some oil in a karai. Fry some cashews and raisins in it, take them out and put in a separate bowl. 

My bowl contains all sorts of things like coconut flakes and dried papayas. But I was just trying to get rid of all the dry fruit that I have. Cashews and raisins are sufficient in ordinary time. (Ok, go for coconut flakes if you really love coconut that much)

Sauce

Next, fry jeera, methi and green pepper in the oil. Then fry the vegetables. Start with the vegetables that are slow to cook: I started with cauliflowers and carrots. Put them in, stir and cover for 2 minutes. Next step:  peas, corns and mushrooms in, stir and cover for 2 minutes. Next step: onions, same process. Finally, put the tomatoes in. Tomatoes can either be minced or pureed. I think pureed gives better effect as it gives instant gravy. Put in a spoon of ground garlic and ginger. At this stage, pour in your flavored water, sprinkle garam masala and salt to your taste, and let it boil for a few minutes. (I recommend putting slightly more salt than needed, as it will have to suffice for the rice as well). At this point, you can also add any other spice that could not be boiled in water. I used heeng and it tasted wonderful, but you can use jimmu and other things. 

The sauce should look like this. Do NOT cook the lettuce, spinach or other saag items, they will be used later. 

Baking prep

At this time, you can preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Or, I have heard that this works just as well in rice cookers, though I have not tried it. Take a baking dish that is big enough to fit all the food. Start with rice at the bottom. Put about half of the rice you have.

(This is actually the second layer, but no matter, the first layer is just rice at the bottom of the pan)

Put half of the sauce over the rice. Sprinkle half of the nuts. 

Cover it up with a layer of your favorite saag. It can be spinach, cabbage, lettuce, soup ko saag or anything else. Some recipes recommended putting entire leaves of lettuce on top of the rice, I veto it and recommend cutting the saag into bite sized pieces.

Repeat process for remaining half of ingredients so that there are two layers of the food. At this point, if you dish comes with a cover, put the cover on. If not, cover it up with aluminium foil. Dash it into the oven and bake it for about 40 minutes, or until the rice doesn't feel raw. If you are using rice cooker, cook until rice cooker says done. The sauce should have enough water to completely cook the half cooked rice.

Finally!

After 40 minutes, take the dish out, and voila!!!! Serve hot! Don't forget to mix the stuff around with a spoon. Since it is cooked in layers, it needs to be mixed up before eating. (Usually accompanied by curries, but I think raita is the best side dish for biryani) 

I can assure you that the smell is TO DIE FOR!

Just in case: List of all ingredients:

Rice

Oil

Vegetables:

Green peppers

Onion

Tomatoes

Cauliflower

Carrots

Lettuce

Mushroom

Peas

Corn

Nuts:

Cashews

Raisins

Spices:

Jeera 

Methi

Ginger

Garlic

Cloves

Green cardamom

Cinnamon

Nutmeg powder

Black pepper

Bay leaves

Heeng

Garam masala

As for proportions, it was all kind of improvised.... let's just say reasonable proportions

Easy Peasy (Cheesy) Pasta

Poor pasta, a victim of bad light. It looks gorgeous in daytime.

Do not roll up your eyes and say “Not another of those easy-sounding recipes that turn out all complicated!” Believe me, I am as much a non-cook as you are, quite apt to burn and undercook and oversalt. But this is a recipe perfected by Sewa and me, really easy and yummy, and I make a bowlful many, many evenings of the month.  Try it out, the recipe is enough for two. 

INGREDIENTS

1. Pasta/Macaroni (whatever the packet likes to call itself) : I estimate one fistful for one person.

2. Chili: One for each person too, unless you prefer something more or less spicy.

3. Salt: Well, obviously!

4. Onion: One, since I am not a big fan.

5. Sauce: Sewa and me like Maggi Hot and Sour, and lately I like Druk too. Plain sauce does not do as well.

6. Potatoes: Around four medium-sized ones. Peel, and cut into (very) tiny cubes.

7. Fresh shelled peas: Not mandatory, of course, but it is for me the highlight of the dish.

8. Carrots: One should do. Peeled and diced into small cubes.  

9. Cauliflower: If you want some. Or cabbage, or even capsicum or beans. Whatever you prefer. Cut into miniscule pieces.

10. Tomatoes: Five small ones.

11. Cheese: As much as you want, and I want a lot. Grate it for convenience.

METHOD:

1. Heat oil in a frying pan and sauté onions (or fry them, but I just wanted to use the word sauté in my recipe.)

2. Put in the peas first, and cover while they splatter around merrily.

3. Toss in the carrots and potatoes and assorted veggies.

4. Mix well and cook on a small flame. After it is near ready (you can taste one potato cube, that’s what I do), drop in the tomatoes and cover.

5. In another pan, boil water, drop in macaroni, with a pinch of salt and a drop of oil if you want (I never seem to want any).

6. Around fifteen minutes should be enough for both the veggies and the macaroni.

7. Wash the macaroni in cold water, drain and keep aside (or nearby, I should say).

8. Now add the macaroni to the veggies, and stir really hard.

9. Then add dollops of the sauce to the mixture, so that everything is evenly red.

10.  Add the shredded cheese, stir until the flavor becomes heady and the texture thick and sticky.

11. Mix well, and ladle unto bowls. Garnish it with more cheese if you like, or even coriander (though I haven’t tried it personally).