Prawn Biriyani

Here’s a recipe I had copied from some book when I was 15 maybe. Have I mentioned yet that I had a craze of noting down recipes from the time I was a kid. Some of them I was able to try out immediately and the others had to wait many years to see the light of day. This one is one of those that had to wait. Again I simplified it and voila, it turned out fine.

Start with heating a little ghee in a non stick vessel. To this add 1 cup basmati rice,  that has been washed and drained. Fry the rice a bit, and then add spices. Maybe a little bit of cinnamon, couple of cardamom seeds, a couple of cloves. You also can add a bay leaf.  Stir fry for a minute and then 2 cups of boiling water. Add a little salt for taste. Using boiling water makes the cooking process faster. If you using more than 1 cup rice, add double the quantity of water too. That is for 2 cups rice, 4 cups water.

While the rice is cooking, fry one sliced onion in ghee, then in the same ghee fry cashew nuts and raisins and keep aside for garnishing. You can also finely chop some mint leaves for the same.

Watch the rice, it should be cooked when all the water has dried up. If it needs a little more time to cook, just lower the flame and let it cook. Do not overcook the rice.

In most recipes including this one, it is required to cook the rice in lots of water, strain it, and then use it. But I prefer just cooking it with exactly double the quantity of water, so I can avoid the draining excess water part.

Once the rice is cooked, turn off the flame and run a fork through it, to let all the steam escape. This way you make sure that the rice doesn’t become a big blob of rice, but instead stays separated.

Then for the masala, grind  8 green chillies, about 10 flakes of garlic, an inch of ginger, a small bunch of coriander leaves, 4 long red chillies, 2 tsp jeera, little turmeric powder, 1/2  cup grated coconut and a tbsp  of khus khus to a fine paste.

Heat a vessel with a little ghee.  Fry one sliced onion till brown, and then add the ground paste.Add salt to taste. Fry it well and then add the cleaned and deveined prawns. Let the prawns cook and then you are ready to layer up your biriyani. Keep in mind that prawns shouldn’t be overcooked. They lose their juiciness. So add the prawns when your masala is well fried. Prawns take just about 3 to 5 mins to cook or a little more if they are bigger. Overcooking makes them tough.

Now layer up the rice.  In a large vessel, pour little of the prawn masala, add a little rice, then few mint leaves, and then fried onion, cashew and raisin. Mix a bit. Repeat layers. And your biriyani is ready to serve........ I thoroughly enjoyed it with some raita. Hope you do too..