Vegetable Biryani as colorful as holi..........

If its Holi today , its got to be colorful

Everybody Happy Holi!!!!!!!!!. Hope you guys are having a riot spraying each other with color and water.........As for me I'm allergic to powder of any kind especially if its thrown at me or even if my nose manages to sniff it...........so well no throwing of colors for me ........But heh its holi and I am going to play with colors today, only my colors are wee different..................you can eat themmmmmmmm ......I got up today and said to myself think holi Sanjana think color..........okie red, green, yellow, white..................Yep its got all these colors.............its Vegetable Biryani guys............

A quick call to my dear friend Sandhya who is my other instant salvation when Im in culinary distress...........and she says just put this and that and some more of this and that and then viola veg biryani and I am like Puhleasssssssse! How many times do I have to tell you to give me proportions , gee you cant trust me to do it by andaaaaaz..........for heavens sake that would be catastrophic. But nah she is the andaaz queen..........Ill tell you a thing about all these andaaz queens, by the way its their way of not telling you the right recipe.........stupid they dont want you to cook as well as they do...........so I tell her that for the umpteenth time........LOL yeah shes my friend right so I can tell her anything......anyways so she tries to remember the proportions and a couple of quick jottings and the recipe is written a few arrows going upward and a few downward...............

Time now for my second line of action google for it on one hot stove my second cooking SOS and ofcourse trust Nupur to have it listed  and that too so well chronicled i thought to myself why bother taking the pictures shes done such a good job of it herself. Check out Nupurs biryani at http://onehotstove.blogspot.com/2007/02/vegetable-biryani-for-crowd.html. 

Okie you guys might think that everytime i take a recipe down I make it........well think again.........but just coz this blog is new Im going to do it alrite??????//

im going to quickly give you a recap......k

Basmati Rice ( kohinoor Rice its a tad expensive but believe me you wont regret it)= 200gms

Wash the basmati thrice to remove the starch. and then parboil it in salted water ......

For the masala layer= Grind together the following ingredients

3 onions sliced and fried in ghee till nicely pink

4 green chilles the spicier ones if you please

1/2 cup fresh coriander sprigs

1 elaichi seeds

6-7 flakes garlic

1" pc of ginger.

For the vegetables.

11/2 cup of cauliflower florets 

1 cup of peas

1/2 cup of french beans

1/2 cup of carrots

Method. Put all the veg in a bowl and add enough water to cover and cook . Boil enough to cook the vegetables while still maintaining theri crispness. remove from fire and strain. Please reserve the stock you going to use it later.

For the garnish

1 onion sliced and fried in gheet till crispy brown

2 potatoes fingers deep fried till golden brown

1/2 cup cashewnuts fried till golden brown

1/2 cup raising fried till they puff ( remove immediately so they dont burn)

Lots of finely chopped fresh coriander

few circular slices of tomato and cucumber.

Method: Take ghee in a pan . when hot add 1/2 tsp turmeric  and 1 tbsp of red Kashmiri chilli powder stir it once and quickly add 2 tomatoes finely chopped . ( I like to use kashmiri chilli as it gives the dish color and its not so spicy) fry the tomatoes nicely now add 1 capsicum finely chopped ( mark I did not add capsicum to the other veg that were parboiled coz capsicums taste batter when they are crunchy.........and even parboiling them kills their flavor........ofcourse thats just my opinion and this is my blog............LOL.) awrite once this is done add the ground masala...........NOw fry this masals well until it starts leaving the sides then add the star ingredient of this dish " everest Shahi Biryani masala" rougly 11/2 tbsp  and salt and 1/2 cup of youghurt whipped well...........stir in the youghurt nicely so that it evenly spreads.........now add salt and 2 tbspn of sugar...................yes sugar.............it actually accentuates the flavors of the dish...........and gives it a subtle taste which is not sweet.  okie gravey is all ready add the stock to this mix and another 1/2 cup of water ( i always  put some water in the mixer after ive removed the ground masala - gee i don t know any Indian who doesnt - besides its better than adding plain water, no??) okie now bring the gravy to a nice boil simmer for few minutes but not for too long we dont want to kill those vegetables. okie switch off the gas, its time now to assemble the biryani

Take a thick bottomed vessel ( i use the bottom of my cooker -it works beautifully) apply ghee to the bottom. then sprinkle some browned onion on it then a layer of rice , then a layer of vegetable gravy, a layer of brown onions again, a layer of cashew and raisins, a layer of potato chips, a sprinkle of coriander leaves. now repeat all over again to finish the rice.........just divide it in a way that you end up with garnish on top and not rice........LOL that wouldnt look as pretty.........

Now add 1/2 cup saffron milk over the top.

okie another thing i like to do at this point is take a steel cup and put some whole spices in it and just place the cup over the rice.........my husband abhors whole spices so for those of you who do and dont like to bite in to whole pepper this is what you can do to get the flavor while omiting the spice....okie time to close the vessel with a lid . Make wheat dough and stick dough over the top of the vessel and lid so that steam doesnt leave..............now keep this thich bottomed vessel over an iron skillet so that its not in direct touch with the fire......keep the fire on sim or the slowest you can and cook for 1/2 an hour.............

I promise you when you open the vesselllllllllllllyou wont have to call out to the family for lunch......theyll make their way to the table on their own.............

alright to go along this biryani my family likes a raita .........

ingredients for the raita

2 onions choppped finely

2 tomatoes chopped finely

1/2 cup finely cut fresh coriander

salt to taste

and 1/2 tsp red chilli powder

just whisk the youghurt nicely and mix in all the ingredients...........theres not much fuss to this raita but it tastes simply great with a vegetable biryani.

okie for those of you who are like me lazy as hell and hate to go through all the works and still want to make this biryani...........what i like to do is make the veg gravy the previous day..........i generally do that in the evening when im free ...........so the next day when i have guests im only doing the assembly and the garnish.............It helps and you dont end up being tired and wanting to turn your guests away the moment they show up.........LOL. There have been times in my life when ive wanted to do just that.............hey i hope you give this recipe a shot.......yeah i did plan to follow Nupurs recipe first but im no good when it comes to sticking to the rules..........I must do my own thing..................lol..............so i tweaked her recipe a bit.........just so I could call it mine.............LOL...........no seriously i tweak with recipes mostly becoz i dont have an ingredient or if i want to adapt it to our palates...........