Pressure Cooker Mutton Biriyani

Ingredients

For the Rice & Masala

3 cups of basmati rice
2 large onions, sliced
2 medium tomatoes, sliced
3 green chillies, cut lengthwise
1/4 tsp ginger paste
1/4 tsp garlic paste
a little less than 1/4 cup of chopped mint leaves
1/4 cup chopped coriander leaves
4 cardamoms
4 cloves
3 cinnamon sticks
3 bay leaves, hand crushed
2 tsp biriyani Masala ( I used the *homemade biriyani masala)
2 tsp red chilli powder
1/4 tsp turmeric powder
salt to taste
water as required
2 tbsp ghee/clarified butter
1 tbsp oil

To pressure cook the Mutton

2 lb mutton, cut into medium size pieces

1 tbsp ginger paste

1 tbsp garlic paste
1/2 tsp turmeric powder
1/4 tsp cumin seeds(optional)
water just enough to cover the mutton
salt to taste


* To make the home made biriyani masala

 6 cloves
 5 cinnamon sticks
 6 bay leaves
 1/4 tsp fennel seeds

1.  Dry roast all the ingredients in low heat until they turn a little crispy. Be careful not to burn the spices.

2.  Grind in a blender to fine powder.

If you make some extra biriyani masala, you can store it in an airtight container. It will stay good for 2 months.

Preparation

1. Wash the rice well. Drain the rice in a strainer and keep aside. Allow it to air dry.

2. In a pressure cooker, add mutton along with ginger paste, garlic paste, turmeric powder, cumin seeds , salt and water just enough to cover the mutton. Pressure cook the mutton in medium flame until it is completely cooked. (For me it needed 6 whistles). Allow it to cool.

3. Mean time, heat the ghee and oil in a kadai. To this add cloves, cinnamon sticks, cardamom and bay leaves and saute for 2 minutes in medium flame.

4. To this add the sliced onions and saute until they turn golden brown.

5. Now add the sliced tomatoes to this and saute until the tomatoes turn soft.

6. Add the chopped mint leaves and coriander leaves to this and saute until the raw smell goes.

7. To make the masala, you can add chilli powder, turmeric powder, biriyani masala and salt to this. Mix well and saute in low flame for 4-5 minutes and keep aside.

8. Now separate the pressure cooked mutton pieces from the gravy. Add them to the masala and mix well. Cook it for another 2-3 minutes in low flame. You can save the gravy for cooking the rice.

9. Rice to water ratio for cooking the rice is 1:1 1/2. Since we are cooking 3 cups of rice we need 41/2 cups of water. Measure the gravy you have saved and add required amount of water to make it 41/2 cups.

10. Transfer the masala, rice and 41/2 cups of water-gravy mix to a pressure cooker and mix well. If needed, add salt at this stage. Now Pressure cook it in low flame for 1 whistle and turn off the heat. Let the pressure go off.

The easy mutton biriyani is ready.

Note : You can cook the rice in a rice cooker also. For this transfer the masala rice and water to the rice cooker and cook it in white rice mode.

Masala Dosa (Indian Coffee House Style)

Ingredients

Dosa batter to make 10 dosa
ghee or oil as required

For the masala

2 medium potatoes, peeled
2 medium beetroot, peeled
1 carrot peeled
1 medium onion, sliced
4 green chillies, thinly chopped
1 tsp ginger paste
1 tsp kashmiri chilli powder
1/4 tsp turmeric powder
3 pinches of garam masala
1/2 tsp urad dal
1/4 tsp mustard seeds
a few curry leaves
salt to taste
oil as required
water left after pressure cooking the vegetables

Preparation

1. Pressure cook the peeled potatoes, beetroot and carrot. Once it is cool, mash them coarsely and keep aside.

2. Heat oil in kadai. Add the urad dal and mustard seeds to this. Once it splutters, add the sliced onion, green chillies,ginger paste and curry leaves along with salt and saute well

3. Once the onions turn soft, add the turmeric powder, kashmiri chilli powder and garam masala to this. Mix and saute in low heat flame for 2 minutes.

4. Now add the mashed vegetables to this. Adjust the salt at this stage. Mix well and cook for a minutes in low flame. Turn off the heat.

If the masala is too thick, add 2 tbsp of water and mix well.

To make masala dosa

1. Heat the non-stick dosa tawa in medium flame. Once it is hot, pour a ladle full of dosa batter on the tawa and spread it evenly in a circular motion from inside out.

2. Add a little ghee around the edges of the dosa.

3. Once the dosa is dry and edges turn light brown in color, put 2 tbsp of masala in the center and spread it.

4. Now fold both sides of the dosa to the mixture.

5. Remove from the heat and indian coffee house style masala dosa is ready to be served

Indo Chinese Egg Fried Rice

Ingredients

2 cups of basmati rice
4 cups of water

4 eggs
1 medium size white onion, chopped
3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 inch ginger, finely chopped
1 green chilli, finely chopped
1/2 cup of chopped carrots
1/2 cup of chopped french beans
1/4 cup of fresh green peas
a bunch of spring onions, chopped
11/2 tsp soya sauce
1 tsp  tomato chilli sauce
1 tsp vinegar
1/4 tsp pepper powder
salt to taste
2 tbsp water
5 tbsp sesame oil

Preparation

1. Cooking the rice
   a. Soak the rice for 10 minutes and drain in a colander .
   b. Heat 2 tbsp sesame oil in a large vessel.
   c. Add the rice and stir fry for 5 minutes.
   d. Add 4 cups of water and salt as required to this and cook the rice in medium heat. (Stir once in a while)

2. Preparing the egg scramble
   a. Beat the eggs with 1/4 tsp of pepper powder and 2 pinches of salt.
   b. Heat 1 tbsp of sesame oil in a pan.
   c. Add the beaten egg to this and scramble until it is cooked and keep aside.

3. Heat 2 tbsp of sesame oil in a large pan and add the sliced onion with chopped ginger,garlic and green chilli for a minute.

4. Now add the chopped carrots, french beans and green peas to this and saute for another  2 to 4 minutes.

5. Sprinkle 1 or 2 tbsp of water to this and cover the pan with a lid and cook the vegetables in medium heat.

6. Add vinegar, soy sauce and chilli tomato sauce to this and mix well.

7. Turn the heat to low. Add the cooked rice to this and combine well. Add salt if needed.

8. Now add the scrambled egg and chopped spring onion to this and again mix thoroughly. Turn off the heat

Pudina Rice / Mint Rice & Dates Raita

One lazy fore noon and nothing to cook!! Should I go for a grocery shopping now? Not in this heat. Saw some pudina in the fridge. So thought of making pudina rice.Perfect to try on a lazy day,  make  some dates raita to coplete the mea!!! 

Mint Rice/Pudina Rice

Ingredients (serves 3 people)

2 cups basmati rice
3 to 4 cups water to cook the rice (depending on the rice you use)

15 mint leaves (avoid the stem)
5 tbsp grated coconut
2 or 3 green chilies

1 medium onion, chopped
1/2 tsp mustard seeds
1/2 tsp cumin seeds
3 dried red chilies
1 twig curry leaves
2 pinches of asafoetida
2 tbsp coconut oil

salt to taste

Preparation

1. Cook the rice separately in sufficient water until they are cooked, yet firm.

2. Grind the mint leaves, green chilies and coconut with sufficient water to get a coarse paste.

3. Heat the oil in large pan. Add the mustard seeds. Once it splutters, reduce the flame to low and  add the cumin seeds , asofoetida , dry red chillies and curry leaves. Saute for 10 seconds.

4. Now add the chopped onions to this and saute until they are transparent.

5. Add the ground paste to it and cook for a few seconds till the raw smell goes.

6. At this stage add enough salt.

7. Add the cooked rice to this and mix well with the onion-ground paste mixture in the pan and stir for a minute gently without breaking the rice.

Mint rice is ready and it goes well with mango pickle and dates raita.

Dates Raita

Ingredients

1/2 cup curd
10 dates, deseeded and chopped into medium pieced
1 medium onion chopped
2 green chilies, chopped
1/2 tsp coconut oil
salt to taste

Preparation

Mix all the ingredients together and crush them softly with hand. If the curd is very thick, you can add some water.

Poori Masala

Poori masala is a very common dish in Indian households. Though poori can b served with most of the veg and nonveg dishes, the best and perfect combination for it is the potato masala which is Indian mashed potatoes.

This masala can also be used for making masal dosa.

Poori Masala

Ingredients

To make Poori (To make 10 to 12 pooris)

1 cup wheat flour
1/4 cup + as needed water
1 or 2 cups of oil enough to immerse the poori completely
Salt to taste

To make Masala (To serve 2 to 3 people )

3 large potatoes
1 big onion thinly sliced
1 tsp chopped ginger
1 tsp chopped garllic
3 or 4 green chillies
1/2 tsp turmeric powder
1 tsp mustard seeds
2 dry red chillies
a few curry leaves
1/2 cup water
salt to taste

Preparation

To make poori

1. Add the wheat flour and salt in a large bowl and mix well.

2. Add the water little by little and mix the dough to get a consistency harder than that of chappathi. Add 1 tsp of oil to the dough and mix until no flour is stick on the bowl and the dough is smooth and kneadable.

3. Cover and rest aside the dough for at least one hour. After that, knead it well once again and separate into half  lemon sized balls.

4. Take each ball of dough and roll it into palm sized circular shapes using a roll pin. (not too thick, not too thin). If the dough is sticking while rolling,  add a little oil to it.

5.  In a kadai add oil enough to deep fry the poori. Heat the oil in medium heat. Once the fumes start coming, drop each rolled poori in the oil. Press the poori gently with a ladle when the poori starts to bulge slightly. This will make the poori puff well.

6.  Once it puffs well, flip the poori over and cook the other side until golden brown spots appear.

7.  Drain them in a paper towel.


*  Do not use the dry wheat flour while rolling to prevent sticking. Use oil instead of it. If you use the flour, it may leave black traces while frying and it can discolor the pooris.

*  If you stretch the dough little more than the palm size, you may not get puffed pooris.

*  For the pooris to puff, there should be enough oil in the kadai and also the oil should be hot enough.

To make the masala

1. Boil the potatoes and peel them off .

2. Mash the potatoes roughly (It should not be smooth paste) and keep it aside.

3. Heat oil in a pan or kadai. Add mustard seeds, when it splutters add dry red chillies and curry leaves.

4. Add the chopped ginger and garlic, sliced onions and green chillies to that and saute well.

5. Once the onion turn light brown in color, add turmeric powder and mashed potatoes.

6. Mix well , add  water along with salt and bring to boil. You can mash the potatoes slightly with the ladle.

7. Once the gravy is thick enough,the masala  is ready to be served.

* If the gravy is too thick you can add water as needed and bring to boil.