Fish Biriyani

Just when I thought I am blogging a lot these days, that phase is slowly coming down again. I have  lost
interest in cooking and blogging and I am enjoying the free time watching movies and TV ! I watched quite a few mallu movies the past few nights like 22 female Kottayam, Ordinary, Chappa kurushu, Indian Rupee etc. There was a time when used to watch all the new mallu movies online,but after having my boy I kind of lost the track of new movies, and my film were restricted to the english movies that comes on T.V. Now I am quite happy to catch up with the movies which I missed last few years ! Same is the story with Hindi movies,I watched few of the hit movies which I missed , Zindagi na mile dubarah and 3 idiots were the best among the hindi movies I watched recently.

Coming back to today's recipe,7 years ago when I came to U.K for the first time,I was surving only on the basic cooking and slowly the cooking bug bit me and I started experimenting the complicated dishes with my Amma's help over the phone :) One day ,I had a  sudden craving to eat some fish biriyani and I had some frozen king fish in the freezer , but the time was too late to call my amma in India .That's when I got exposed to the blogging world for the first time ! When I googled for fish biriyani, I came across so many blogs and I was super thrilled ! I tried fish biriyani recipe from one of the blogs 7 years ago and it was yummm, Su was  also very  impressed .Years passed , but still for fish biriyani I am following the same recipe as I love this recipe ,but I am sorry I can't find that original recipe  or  her blog (Priyas Kitchen) anymore but since I wrote down the recipe in a book I still have the recipe with me. It's a shame that many of the wonderful blogs which I came across that time are inactive now :(

Ingredients

Ghee - 2 tsp
Bay leaves - 2

Cardamom - 2-3

Fennel seeds - 1 tsp

cinnamon sticks -2

Star anise - 2

Cloves -4

pepper - 1tsp

Onion - 1 + 3

Basmati rice - 2 cups

Boiling water - 3 3/4 - 4 cup

lemon juice - 1/2 of a lime

Coriander -mint - curry leaves paste - 2 tsp

Ginger garlic green chilly paste - 2 tsp

Toamto - 2

Yogurt - 1 tbs

Coconut milk - 1/2 cup

for marination

King fish - 500 g

Chilly powder - 2-3 tsp

Turmeric powder - 1/4 tsp

Pepper powder - 1 tsp

Salt

for garnishing

Cashwenuts - 1-2 tbs

Sultanas/raisins - 2 tbs

Ghee - 1 tsp

Method

1.Soak the basmathi rice in water for 30 mins and drain the water completely.

2.Marinate the fish with the ingredients mentioned and keep it aside for 30 minutes.

3.In a pan add ghee and add the whole garam maslas ans saute for 1- 2 minutes.

4 Add the thinly sliced onion (one) and saute till brown.

5.Add the soaked rice ,lemon juice,salt and add boiling water and cook till done.

6.shallow fry the marinated fish in a pan adding little oil and the place them in paper towels.

7.In the same pan add the sliced onions (3),saute till brown.

8.Add ginger garlic green chilly paste, leaves paste and fry for sometime.

9.Add chopped tomatoes and cook till toamtoes are mashed.

10.Add yogurt,coconut milk and salt and stir for 2-3 minutes.

11.Finally add fried fish to this gravy and cook till gravy thickens for another 3-5 minutes.

12.Layer the rice and fish masala in a oven proof dish and cook it a preheated oven at 180 degree centigrade for 10 minutes.

13.Finally fry some cashewnuts and raisins separetely in ghee and garnish the biriyani !