Sunday, June 15, 2014

Mutton Biryani!

The dish I always wanted to put my hands on but never felt confident of getting my fingers soaked.The idea of bringing out the original flavors and laying the right aroma on the table stopped me,then trying out my beginners luck on Fathers day gave me the recipe for lifetime.I have locked the process and I am ready for sharing it to all.This recipe gives you nice aromatic mouthful taste with right amount of spices,one can add Chili or more masala according to ones taste.
We start with Good quality of Basmati rice,I chose 'Indiagate' brand and soaked it for few hours.The essentials for pantry are all good quality whole spices(Cardamom black and green,Cinnamon sticks,Cloves,Whole black pepper,Bay leaves,Shahi cumin).Lets start with the recipe and the ingredients:
1)2 cups of Basmati rice
2)Red onion thinly sliced for deep frying
3)Ginger and Garlic paste for marinading mutton- four tablespoon
4)Star ingredient Mutton 1 kg
5)1cup Curd for marinading the mutton
6)Tomato pulp of two medium red Tomatoes
7)Fresh green coriander
8)Cooking oil for frying and and
9)Shan biryani masala(pakistani brand to look for)
10)Leaves of Mint for fragrance
11)Kesar/Saffron sprigs for soaking in milk
12)Diced almonds and raisins for garnish
13)Salt to taste

We start with lots of patience and time with deep frying our sliced onions in high flame oil.It should turn golden and little crisp as thats the perfect texture for it.Keep the fried onions aside.Next we start with frying our ginger garlic paste in oil with all whole spices mentioned,try keeping the amount balanced as no overpowering of one thing in there.Like four of each works for me(cloves,pepper cardamom etc)I would remind of marinading the mutton before hand with curd and rest of ginger garlic paste,salt so that its ready for sautéing.
We start with frying onions and tomatoes in the ginger garlic paste being already frying and then adding biryani masala to it.Two tablespoon of masala is good for the flavor.We expect the oil to separate and give us nice red masala consistency with bhuna(roasted)mutton.
We would boil the rice side by side and then keep it 3/4 done and strain it.Next comes the layering of rice and masala,with adding alternatively each and one after other in a baking dish where our recipe would go next level.Add lots of coriander and mint leaves.We add our deep fried onion too at this time on the top layer.Pour our Kesar(saffron) soaked milk all over the dish.Finally dress our dish with dry fruits and cover the baking dish with foil.
We will keep it in oven for half an hour at 275F Let the rice gets permeated with flavors and cooked to the desired quality and remain warm before serving.

The discovery of shan masala was a added bonus as it imparts all professional goodness to the recipe!
I would suggest eat the Biryani with raita and poppadums and keep writing back for reviews....