Vegetable Biryani - One Pot Meal

Yay!!  Immensely happy posting my 50th recipe. I started my food blogging voyage few months ago & never expected to reach golden jublee milestone so soon. Everyone loves to celebrate such occasions with something special. In this situation that 'special' would be a recipe very close to my heart, something I love to cook for everyone around me, & hence decided to go with it at THE 50th recipe of ShwetaInTheKitchen - presenting to you my all time favorite -Vegetable Biryani , a total hit in my family. 

For those who are new to Biryani concept, its basically a one pot dish made by alternately layering rice & gravy & garnished by fried onions & dry fruits. Am not a big fan of dry fruits when it comes to mixing it with Biryani hence I prefer to add fried potatoes instead. 

I learnt the basic art of preparing Biryani from my Mom. Sunday would be be the typical non-vegetarian day with elaborate breakfast followed by an elaborate lunch. Whenever Mom used to say she is making Biryani I used to be thrilled after all I played the role of assembling the Biryani 🙂 She would make everything easy & ready for me, I had to just assemble it together. Needless to say, I truly enjoyed that process & my enjoyment still continues.  

Ingredients: 

2 cups of uncooked rice
1 large potato cut into wedges
2 medium sized onions slices (julienne)
Mix Vegetable Curry 
Oil for frying 
2-3 bay leaves
2 green cardamom
Pinch of saffron strands
Few mint leaves
Butter/ghee for greasing
salt to taste

Method: 

Fry Onions & Potato: 

• In a pan heat sufficient oil to fry the onions on medium heat with a pinch of salt till crisp & golden. Drain & remove on absorbent paper to soak the excess oil. 
• Similarly fry the potato till cooked & slightly golden.  Drain & remove on absorbent paper to soak the excess oil. 
• That's it our fried Onions & potato are ready. Keep aside

Tip : If you would like to add cashews to the Biryani, fry them too similar to onions & potatoes.

Cook Rice: 

• I cooked rice in microwave for about 20 mins using 1:2 ratio i.e. for 1 cup of rice I used 2 cups of water. (you can cook in pressure cooker or rice cooker or open top too. Also  rice has different water requirements so use the quantity that works best for you )
• Cook each cup of rice separately. 
• While cooking each cup of rice, add bay leaf & cardamom to the rice & season with salt to taste.  Drizzle some oil to prevent the rice from sticking. 
• To the other cup, cook it exactly the same way as first cup just add saffron to get orange tinge. 
• Once the rice is cooked spread it out on a flat dish to prevent it from sticking to each other or forming a cake. Keep aside.

Prepare Mix Vegetable Curry: 
I have used a combination of mix vegetables in the gravy layer but your could use any gravy of your choice or even a non-veg gravy to to make it a non-vegetarian Biryani. To view the complete recipe for this Mix Vegetable Curry please click here

Assemble the Biryani :

• Take a thick bottom vessel (deeper the better) & grease it with butter/ghee.  
• The first layer would be plain white rice, take ¾ of the cooked white rice & spread it evenly.
• Next apply a generous layer of the Mix vegetable curry.
• Randomly tear some mint leaves & sprinkle them over the gravy layer.
• Now spread some fried potatoes & onions. 
• Now repeat the above steps to create the second layer.  
• This time I used the rice cooked with saffron as my second layer. Spread it evenly.
• Layer it next with gravy, mint leaves, fried potatoes & onions
• Now for the last/top layer cover with the left over white rice. 
• Decorate with some gravy, mint, fried potatoes & onions 
• Cook this Biryani on Dum i.e. tightly sealed & slow flame. 

Tip : Ideally Dum process requires the Cooking pot to be seal with dough & steamed over coals. The whole idea is to not allow steam to escape so that the flavors remain well inside. Incase you have a pot with tight lid that should work too. Cook it on very low flame or add a pan/griddle between the gas stove & cooking pot to prevent from sticking/burning. 

That's it our elaborate One pot Meal - Vegetable Biryani is ready. It is a lengthy & time consuming process but totally worth the effort.  Serve it hot with Mix Vegetable Raita (Yogurt based dish) or any Raita of your choice.