A recipe for Vegetable Biryani

Here is a recipe for Vegetable Biryani that has been well received by others so I thought I will post it here.  Why am I adding yet another Biryani recipe when there are literally thousands already on the web?  The reason is that most recipes seem to assume that everything will just work.  Reality is however different.  In real life

• after following the recipe, we may find that the rice has remained uncooked and we have to figure out how to recover from that problem
• we may not have all the ingredients so we may start wondering what to do
• the recipe may not explain what advance preparations might be required
• and so on ...

In this recipe I have tried to explain the rationale for various steps in the hope that this will help you extricate yourself if (when) you encounter something unexpected besides encouraging you to depart from the book.
First a high level view of the process of making Biryani:

• Cook the vegetables that will ultimately go into the Biryani
• Shallow fry the onions along with cumin seeds and ground cumin powder.  This will ultimately be mixed into the semi-cooked rice in the next step
• Partly cook the rice in water infused with various spices and mix the onions in the rice
• Interleave layers of semi-cooked rice and vegetables in a vessel and then cook this over low heat

Advance preparations

• You will need Basmati rice - I have never tried this recipe with any other rice and would hesitate to suggest that you use any other rice variety since getting the rice right is one of the key elements of a good biryani
• You will need a good thick bottomed vessel in which to slow cook the Biryani since a think bottomed vessel will result in the Biryani getting burned at the bottom.  If you do not have such a vessel you need not despair - you could simulate this by placing your actual Biryani vessel in another vessel while doing the slow cooking but then you will need another wider vessel for this.  My experience with rice cookers has been mixed so I will not recommend them  (although you will find some tips for how to use a rice cooker as well)
• You will need a lot of Indian spices.  While it may be O.K. if you are missing some of these , you would want to have most of these spices available.  In the ingredient list below I have labeled the ingredients as "essential" or "desirable" to help you plan.
•  You will need lots of vegetables - my rough rule of thumb is that for every unit of uncooked rice you can safely use three times the quantity of raw vegetables by volume.  Vegetables that go well with the Biryani are:
• Tomatoes
• Cauliflower
• Green Beans
• Green Peas
• Bell Peppers (also called Simla Mirchi or Capsicum).  Apart from the green colored variety, feel free to use the red and yellow versions too
• Potatoes in limited quantities but if you want to use these, use the ones that will not get mashed but will retain their firmness when cooked.  Also, you would be better off using somewhat large pieces (say cubes of size 3/4th of an inch ?)
• Cilantro for garnishing (also called Dhania leaves or coriander leaves or kothimbir)
• If you are not cooking on a rice cooker, it will be useful but not essential to have some yogurt around

Ingredients

• 175 ml (approx. one cup) Basmati rice (essential)
• Three times as much of vegetables (essential)
• handful of green beans
• 90 ml green peas
• 3 bell peppers
• 180 ml of cauliflower
• One large tomato chopped (essential)
• 2/3rd cup chopped onion (essential)
• (Optional) a teaspoon of heavy cream for adding to the vegetables
• (Optional) six teaspoons of yogurt (dahi or curds)
• 4 spoons cooking oil (essential - I usually use peanut oil but any cooking oil without a strong smell should do)
• 1/2 tsp roasted and crushed cumin seeds (essential)
• 1 spoon cumin seeds (essential)
• 2 tsp grated ginger (essential)
• 2 or 3 leaves of garlic chopped finely (essential)
• 1 tsp turmeric (essential)
• 1/2 tsp chilli powder (substitute green chillies if unavailable)
• Salt to taste
• 5 cloves (Laung)
• about 4 inches of cinnamon (Dalchini) stick (highly desirable)
• about 6 cardamom (elaichi) pods slit (highly desirable)
• 4/5 bay leaves, aka Tamalpatra  (highly desirable)

Making the Biryani

1. Chop the onions and the vegetables.   Remember to string the beans and throw out the seeds from the bell peppers.  You may mix all the vegetables at this point except for the tomatoes and the cilantro which you should keep separately.
2. Wash and rinse the rice, soak it in plenty of water.  After about 20 minutes drain the water. 
3. While the rice is soaking, roast the cumin seeds till they appear to have become crisp and then crush these seeds into powder. 
4. In a thick bottomed vessel (or a non-stick container) heat about two teaspoons of oil.   When the oil has heated, lower the flame and add about a teaspoon of cumin seeds and make sure that the oil has heated sufficiently by looking at the effect it has on the cumin seeds.  Then add the chopped onions and the ground cumin powder and sautee' this mixture together, occasionally stirring.  Do this until you see the onion changing color (this should take about three to five minutes ).  Important thing to remember is that you should not burn the cumin seeds - remember to lower the stove before putting in the cumin seeds.
5. Gather the following ingredients in a plate:
• grated ginger
• chopped garlic
• 1 teaspoon turmeric powder
• 1 teaspoon cumin seeds
• About three teaspoons of salt - remember that you need to put enough salt to compensate for the fact that the rice in the Biryani has no taste of its own
• Chilli powder according to your taste
6. You could reuse the vessel used in the last step for cooking the vegetables.  Just make sure that it is large enough to hold all our vegetables and still leave room for stirring the vegetables.  Take about two teaspoons of cooking oil and heat it in a fashion similar to the previous step.  Once the oil has heated sufficiently lower the heat, add the ginger and sautee' it for about 30 seconds.
7. Add the remaining ingredients from the plate, stir them for another 15 seconds.  If you feel that things are close to getting burnt, turn off the heat and add the tomatoes before turning on the heat again.  If needed, add a teaspoon of water to ensure that nothing burns and sticks to the bottom.  After about 30 seconds, add the remaining vegetables except the cilantro.  Stir the vegetables and cook on high heat for about three minutes. 
8. Lower the heat and place a lid on the vessel to minimize loss of heat and water vapor.  The idea is that by heating the vegetables on high heat we have already heated the moisture in the vegetables and given time and a minimal amount of heat, the vegetables will cook of their own accord.  Also note that we do not need to add any water - the vegetables we have chosen contain enough moisture to begin with and this is released in the presence of the salt when heated. 
9. Let the vegetables cook for about 15 minutes (please resist the temptation to take off the lid and stir !) .  Take off the lid and raise the stove heat.  The idea is to evaporate the water from the vegetables while simultaneously ensuring that the vegetables have got cooked.   Stir occasionally and cook until the water has mostly evaporated but do not let the vegetables burn at the bottom.  Initially when you take off the lid it may appear that the vegetables are uncooked.  Do not worry - by the time the water has evaporated the vegetables would have got cooked. 
10. If you are using heavy cream, you could add this to the mixture at this time.  Also add the cilantro leaves.
11. With the vegetables prepared, it is now time to cook the rice.  For every cup of rice, take two cups of water and add the cinnamon, cloves, cardamom, bay leaves to it.  Add a teaspoon of salt and bring the water to a good boil.  When the water has started boiling, add the rice and cook it for about three minutes.  Then turn off the heat and drain the water.  Remember that the rice will not be fully cooked at this point.  Remove the various spices from the rice since you want to provide a pleasant eating experience for the consumers of your Biryani.  Add the previously fried onion to the rice and use a fork to mix it in the rice without crushing the rice grains. 
12. We are now at the final step of  the Biryani making process where we will slow cook the rice and the vegetables together.  This is the most critical part of the recipe.  In this step we have to ensure that the rice gets cooked properly but that is does not get burnt.
13. The safest utensil to use for this step is a heavy bottomed non-stick container.  Smear the bottom with some ghee (or butter or oil) to reduce the chances of the rice sticking to the bottom.  Divide the rice into three parts and spread the first part at the bottom of the vessel.  Then spread half the cooked vegetables over this.  Repeat this once more and top it off with the third portion of the rice. 
14. This step is optional - add just enough water to the yogurt so that it forms a thick paste.  Heat this on low heat for about a minute and then pour the yogurt on top spreading it evenly over the rice.
15. Apply a tightly fitting lid and cook on a low flame for about 25 minutes.  Open the lid and check to make sure that the rice at the top has got cooked - if not, heat it some more until this is done.  Add some more cilantro leaves and serve.

Additional tips

If you do not have the "perfect" utensil for doing the slow cooking of the rice, I have a good workaround - in fact the workaround results in an even better Biryani but is a little clumsier.  The workaround is to cook our Biryani inside an outer container.  Take a  utensil wide enough to hold our Biryani container and boil some water in it.  Put the container containing the Biryani rice into this container in such a way that the water does not spill.  Then heat this combination of containers as described above.  The advantage of this method is that the Biryani container gets heated from the sides as well as the bottom.


My experience with using a rice cooker for cooking Biryani has not been a particularly happy one.  For one, the result depends on the make of the rice cooker so I cannot make general recommendations.  However if you are using a rice cooker, I would recommend against using the yogurt since it often leaves the rice at the top uncooked.  Also, I would suggest cooking the rice a little longer when we pre-cook the rice (say 5 minutes).  You need to run the rice cooker on the "white rice" setting.   Finally, do not trust the cooker when it says that the rice is ready - open the cooker and inspect the rice at the top and if it is uncooked, cook it some more for another 10-15 minutes using your judgment.