Veg Briyani

Vegetable Briyani is a common recipe cooked in almost every kitchen.  So nothing great behind it, I simply cooked it last Sunday afternoon...

Preparation time:  10 minutes to boil rice and simultaneously cut vegetables

Cooking time: 20 minutes including frying of potato and onion

Serves: 4

What goes in it:

Potato, vertically sliced- 1 big sized

Capsicum, vertically sliced- 1 small sized

Onion, vertically sliced- 1 big sized

Cashew nuts (Kaju), raisins (Kismis), almonds (Badam)- ½ cup

Cinnamon bark (Tej)- 4-5 pieces

Cloves (Laung)- 5-6 nos

Caradamom (Elaichi)- 5-6 nos

Rice, boiled- 1 cup (I used bastmati rice)

Carrot, diced and boiled- ½ cup

Peas, diced and boiled- ½ cup

French beans, diced and boiled- ½ cup

Turmeric powder- ¾ tbl spn

Red chilli powder- 1 ½  tbl spn

Briyani Masala- 2 tbl spn (I used Badshah Briyani and Pulav masala)

Oil- to fry

Ghee- 3 tbl spn (for sauté)

Lemon juice- 1 tbl spn

To make it look yummy:

3-4 pieces of Cashew nuts

Coriander leaves- ½ cup

How did I make it:

Wash and soak rice 1-2 hours before making the briyani.

Boil the rice with a pinch of salt for about 10 minutes. [Foodies’ Note: Don’t make the rice too mushy] Also add diced carrots, french beans and peas to it. When rice are almost done add few lemon drops. This will give nice texture to rice.

Drain off the water and let it cool.

Take a frying pan and pour oil in it to deep fry potato and onions till they turn golden brown. This will take 5 minutes each.

Remove oil from the frying pan. And add ghee to it or you can pour out extra oil from the pan and keep about 3 tbl spn of oil in it. Heat it up. Add cinnamom, cardamom & cloves to it while it heats up. This will bring a nice aroma in kitchen. Then put capsicum and fry them till they turn dark green. Now put raisins, almonds, cashew nuts to it. Fry it for about 5 minutes till raisins puff up.

Then add cooked rice, boiled vegetables, fried vegatbles, turmeric powder, salt, red chilli powder and briyani masala. Mix them all gently.

Use cashew nuts and coriander leaves for garnishing.

 Serve it with curd and roasted udad papad.