Malabar Mutton Biriyani

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.