This delicious layered biryani is fragrant, flavorful, and filling. Carrot, beans, peas and potatoes cooked in gravy of spicy yogurt and served with basmati rice topped with cashews and fried onions.
If you think biryani is hard to make, I will surely say NO. It surely takes a bit of time. But all the hard work in the kitchen will be well worth the end result. An authentic vegetable biryani is always slow cooked on “dum”. It is an ancient technique of cooking on dum as they believe it brings out its uniqueness and originality. This is done by cooking in steam by not allowing the steam to pass. The food gets cooked on its own steam and juices on slow fire and infuses the flavors and aroma of the herbs and spices in the food.
It is a perfect Sunday lunch idea. I made this for the weekend and I just loved it. I usually like to make veg biryanis on a weekend for the time it takes and also 😉 it makes my weekend complete after having a meal like this 🙂 I made veg biryani, garlic tomato raita, curd rice and papad. I love to have biryanis with mirchi ka salan. It feels like you are in India if you have so :). The last time I had restaurant biryani was before three years in India. I am very choosy. If I don’t like it, I really don’t go to that place again. I loved the kailash parbat biryani 🙂 I am drooling as I type! :D! Actually I am drooling at my biryani 😉 picture and want to make it again 😉 even though I had it only yesterday 😀 There will be no one saying No to biryanis, let it be vegetable biryani, chicken biryani, shrimp biryani, palak biryani ,chickpea briyani, potato biryani and so on! My favorite is this :)!
- For the masala:
- Cashew nuts – 6
- Khus khus (White poppy seeds) – ½ tbsp.
- Cumin seeds/ Jeera – ½ tbsp.[
For fried onions: - Onions – ½ cup, 2 small onions, sliced thinly
- Cashewnuts - 6
- Oil – to fry
For layering: - Mint leaves – 1 tbsp, chopped
- Coriander Leaves – 1 tbsp, chopped
- Saffron – ½ tsp dissolved in ½ cup warm milk
- Ghee – 2 tbsp
For the rice: - Basmati rice – 2 cups
- Salt – 2 tbsps
- Cumin Seeds/ Jeera – 1 tbsp
For the vegetables: - Oil – 1 tbsp
- Bay leaf – ½
- Cinnamon – 1 thin piece
- Cloves – 3
- Cardamom pods – 2
- Ginger garlic paste – 2 tsp
- Full fat yogurt – ½ cup
- Garlic – 4 whole
- Green chilli – 2, slit
- Biryani masala – 1 tbsp
- Red Chilli powder –1 tsp
- Mint – ½ cup, chopped finely
- Coriander leaves – ½ cup, chopped finely
- Fresh beans – ½ cup, Chopped 1 inch thin
- Carrot – 1 cup, chopped 1 inch thin
- Peas – ½ cup
- Potato – 2, chopped as cubes
- Grind the cashew, poppy seeds and cumin seeds into a smooth paste, using as little water as possible. Set aside.
- Deep fry the sliced onions when it is hot. Don’t overcrowd the oil. When the onions turn light brown, remove from oil and drain on paper towel. The fried onion will crisp up as it drains. Also fry the cashewnuts till golden brown. Set aside.
- Wash the rice and soak in water for twenty minutes.
- Meanwhile, take a big wide pan, add oil in medium heat, add the spices like Bay leaf ,
- Cinnamon,Cloves,Cardamom pods ,sauté for a minute.Add the blended paste, to it add the green chillies, ginger garlic paste and garlic and fry for a minute.
- Then to it add the red chilli powder, biryani powder, mint, coriander leaves and sauté them well.
- Add the yogurt and mix well. I always move the skillet away from the heat when adding yogurt which prevents it from curdling.
- Now after returning the skillet back to the stove, add the vegetables and salt and ½ cup water and mix well. Cook for 10 minutes.
- When you do the seventh step, take another big pan, add thrice the cup of rice you use, and boil it. When it is boiling high, add the rice, salt and jeera and mix well. After 7 minutes exact or when the rice is 80% done. Switch off and drain the rice.
- The vegetables would have cooked by now and water would have drained.
- Now, the layering starts. To the vegetables, pat and level it. Add the drained hot rice on the top of it. Garnish with fried onions, ghee, mint, coriander leaves and saffron dissolved in milk.
- Cover the dish and bake in a 350f oven for 15 minutes or till the cooked but not mushy. Or cook in the stove medium heat for 12 minutes and lowest heat for 5 minutes. And switch off. Mix and serve hot!
2. You can skip biryani masala if you don’t have and add just garam masala (1 tsp and red chilli powder – 3 tsp instead of 1 tsp)
3. If it is spicy in the end, squeeze some lemon, it will reduce the heat and enhance the flavors also.
4. Vegans can leave the ghee and replace yogurt with coconut milk
Taste perfect with raita or mirchi ka salan. Even having it plain is delicious.
