Every
night just after winding up
everything and just before hitting bed I get some free time, a
nice 1 hour for me and that’s the only time I really get to sit down and do
things I like. Even though I always think I should make the time useful and do a post here I don’t get into that mood and I
rather spend the time watching TV or trying to finish a book which I borrowed almost a month back
from the library. Some days I just don’t do anything and just spend time in
social media and that’s it pretty much it, so until I find motivation, my blogging
is going to take a back seat I guess.
These
days more than cooking I find shooting it rather challenging. If it’s a weekend
our day usually start very late and by the time lunch / dinner is ready we are
usually so hungry so if I take the camera out for taking pictures with a hungry
child and hubby, it would be like putting myself into trouble, so to be safe I
don’t take that risk !Anyway few weeks back when I made this mutton biriyani I took
some extra effort to take pictures to blog about it. We
don’t eat mutton much and hardly buys mutton at home as we tend to avoid red
meat as much as we can, so I didn’t have a trusted mutton biriyani recipe with
me .That's when I came across this recipe in Kothiyavunnu and decided to give it a go. It’s an awesome recipe and have made this few times now and every time it
went down as a treat for us !
Recipe
adapted from - Kothiyavunnu
Ingredients
For rice
Biriyani rice/ Jeerakasala rice/ Basmathi rice – 2 cups ( I usually use Jeerakasala rice for all my biriyani's which I bring from Kerala )
Onion
– 1 ( thinly sliced)
Water
drained from cooked mutton – 2 1/2 cups
Boling
water – 1 1/4 cup
Lime
juice – 1 tbs
Cinnamon
stick – 1
Cardamom
– 4 pods
Cloves
– 4
Ghee
– 1 tbs
Oil
– 1 tbs
Salt
For Mutton
masala
Mutton
– 500 gm
Onion
– 4 ( sliced lengthwise)
Tomato
– 1
Cinnamon
stick – 1 inch thick stick
Cloves
– 3
Cardamom
pods – 3
Bay
leaf – 1
Star
anise – 1
Peppercorns-
1 tsp
Green
chillies – 15
Ginger
– Thumb size piece
Garlic
– 4-5 cloves
Red
chilli powder – ½ tsp
Turmeric
powder – ¼ tsp
Yogurt
– ½ cup
Water
– 1 cup
Lime
juice – 1 tbs
Salt
Ghee
– 2 tbs
Oil
– 2 tbs
Mint
leaves - few
For garnishing
Fried
onions- Handful
Cashewnut
halves – 2 tbs
Golden
raisins – 2 tbs
Ghee
– 2 tbs
Coriander
leaves
Method
Make
a paste of green chillies, ginger and garlic in a mixie and keep it aside.
Marinate
the mutton with above paste along with chilli powder, turmeric powder, salt,
yogurt and whole garam masala and keep it as long as you can(preferably
overnight ) or at least for ½ an hour.
In
a thick bottomed saucepan/ wok add ghee + oil and sauté the sliced onions until
it’s nicely browned.
Add
in chopped tomatoes and cook until it’s mushy.
Add
the marinated mutton, salt, mint leaves, 1 cup of water and transfer it into a pressure
cooker and cook for 4-5 whistles.
Once
the pressure is released drain the 2 1/2 cups of water from mutton and keep it
aside.
Cooking Rice
Soak
the rice for ½ an hour, drain and keep it aside
In
a big pan add oil+ ghee and add the whole garam masala and sauté for a minute.
Add
in the sliced onions and sauté until soft.
Add
the rice, salt, lime juice and fry the rice for a minute or so.
Add
the mutton stock, remaining water and bring it boil.
Cover
and cook the rice until done.
Layering
In
an oven proof dish spread a layer of rice evenly.
Add
mutton masala on top; continue layering until all rice and mutton masala is
used up.
Cover
the dish tightly with a lid or seal it with maida and dum cook it in a
preheated oven of 180 degree C for 15 minutes.
Garnishing
In
a small pan add ghee and fry cashewnuts until golden brown and raisins until
plump.
Open
the biriyani pot and garnish the biriyani with fried onions, cashewnuts,
raisins and some chopped coriander leaves.
