Coconut Biryani

An overdose of sugar.

Everything you see is either pink or brown, heart shaped and SWEET!

More than the mush, the sugar is going to my head, heart, and tummy and not to miss the hip line. I thus decided to give the box of chocolates and cake covered with fondant and butter cream a miss! That we do next week after all this brouhaha has died down. It’ll be nice to revive the spirit of St Valentine then...at least you won’t get withdrawal symptoms- from the sugar that is.

Fortunately here in Ranchi, people seem oddly detached from the love bug. You’ll only see skinny tweenagers and teenagers holding hands and posing for pictures in the only place to hang out here. I’ll bet my friend’s skinny behind that those pictures are for face book and not for the affairs of their heart. I’m quite tempted to creep up to them and yell BOO! Just so that I can scare them out of their pseudo crushes. Almost like Aunts Zelda and Helga- whichever one was the mean one...but you never know someone might just turn around and say Auntiji...wassup? Only in Ranchi it’ll sound like “bhatt ij up?”  I know I am being mean but, whatever...

This twang of displeasure has definitely not rubbed off from the politicians. I’ve exchanged valentines too, and received teddy bears with a lot of pleasure. I was given a 4 foot Pink Panther once, though I didn’t quite see the connection of Pink Panther with Loovvee...

Valentines’ day only needs a new direction. Maybe a little savoury.

So let’s make it a Biryani instead. Don’t want to sound too full of myself, but my chicken biryani is famous and someone I know makes the most awesome vegetable biryani. Awesome, because on a Tuesday or a Thursday, you don’t really have too many choices. So between the devil and the deep blue sea, you’ll obviously choose to drown. So we drown this vegetable biryani in coconut milk.

That, and a few more changes I made to that famous vegetable biryani. Plus I was dying to use my new steel with tempered glass lid saucepan.

For the

Coconut Biryani...

You need

1½ cups basmati rice

2 tbsp vegetable oil

1 small onion diced
2 tsp finely diced fresh ginger

1 cup shelled peas

1 cup cut French beans

1 cup diced carrots

1 cup cauliflower florets

2 small tomatoes diced

1 stalk lemon grass

150 mils coconut milk

3-4 bay leaves

1 tsp shahi jeera/cumin

 6 Green cardamom, 4 cloves and 1 inch piece cinnamon

Salt, red chili flakes and turmeric to taste

A few drops green food coloring (optional)

1/2 tsp biryani masala (optional)

Just in case you wondered, all the veggies, save the onion ,came from my backyard. Yup, we’ve had loads of peas, I planted nasturtium vines at the border to fool the squirrels, and that worked. The bay leaves are mine too, cinnamon will take a year, but next year I’ll be blogging about that too.

Soak the rice for at least half an hour.

A little oil in a large wok. That’s my seasoned wok for noodles. Every time I cook in it, I use a wee bit less oil, so its tummy and bum friendly now.

The bay leaves and the spices in, along with the onion and the ginger.

Once the onions are translucent, add the tomatoes. When they are done ,add the beans, they take the longest to cook, and we need them al dente, so...

Next in the carrots and a minute later the cauliflower florets.

On the other stove top, now place the pan with the rice, with at least 4 cups of water, add to this a tsp of salt and the stalk of lemon grass. I found the flavor a little mild; I could’ve used two stalks. Just ensure that you pound the stalk…just like the bull dog who always threatens to do so to jerry (remember Tom and Jerry)

The rice has to al dente too. Almost 85 % done.

Back to the veggies, add the peas and season the veggies with the salt and red chili or paprika and the turmeric. Cover and cook on simmer for five minutes or so till the veggies taste nice and still hold their shapes. Mush in a biryani is not good, so don’t overcook them.

The rice would be 85% cooked by now, so drain out all the liquid and open  the lid to stop any further cooking. Handle the rice gently with a fork at this stage.

If your pan or dish is not non stick, you’ll need to grease the bottom and sides so that the rice does not stick. 

Now, one layer of rice, spread carefully, now half the veggies spread on. Next layer of rice and the other half of the cooked veggies. Finally top with the remaining rice.

I stuck the lemon grass somewhere in the middle, for additional flavor.

Now the coconut milk, this is what I used.

The milk delicately spooned over. The coconut milk is high fat, so that removed the need to add the ghee or clarified butter. 

Three places I poured a few drops of green food coloring, after all, what’s food without a little drama? Sprinkle some biryani masala if you want to....

Now the Dum part. On a flat pan or griddle, on low heat, the sauce pan with the layered biryani, cooked for 35 minutes.

In an oven safe dish this biryani would do well in at 160C/320F for the same amount of time. I had to use my new saucepan, and it had a long handle, so I cooked it on Dum.

I was watching through the glass lid, that’s why I bought this pan…

We had this with a raita; the kachumbar salad (mix of diced onions, tomatoes, cucumder and chilies spiked with lemon juice) would have given us a veggie overdose, so we skipped that.

Next time I’ll also toss in a bit of grated fresh coconut, for extra flavor.

Healthy, wholesome and tasty. This covered two meals. Hubby dear is out of town, so we cook only when hungry.

Try this spiked, “hatke” Biryani. Its almost Thai in flavours.

So what are you baking today???


Try a pizza without the tomato sauce..
coming up!
Sauceless Pizzas