How to Cook Indian project - Dishes 18-19
When I was in college, there was an Indian restaurant near campus that my friends and I used to go to, every now and then, Bombay Indian Grill. Granted, I haven’t been then in many years, since finishing school, but I remember really liking it. I remember ordering the biryani a few times, loving the flavor and wondering what goes into making it. From my naïve perspective, it seemed like all you needed to do was just mixed some rice with various other ingredients and that was it. I decided to take a deep dive into biryani this week, and make it myself!
Murgh Biryani (Spiced Chicken in Rice - pages 486-7)
I like using brown rice, when recipes call for rice, because it makes me feel like the meal is healthier then. However, the rice doesn’t get that same punch of color from the saffron as white rice does. In addition, I was lazy when I made this recipe because I should have looked up the proper water to brown rice ratio for cooking, but didn’t. Because of that, I think I ended up with a mushy rice (almost porridge like), instead of a fluffy individual grains of rice.
Outside of my normal change, of reducing the number of onions by half, I followed the recipe. I learned that quite a lot goes into make a biryani. Lots of time, lots of low heat cooking and steaming, letting all the flavors really sink in together. It also helped to read this recipe ahead of time, as many ingredients needed to be divided or prepared in different ways.
Overall, I enjoyed making this and would like to try it again one day, perhaps paying more attention to how I’m cooking the rice, to get a fluffier, less mushy, outcome.
Burani (Garlic Yogurt - pages 68-9)
I love garlic and so when I saw that there was something called garlic yogurt, I knew I wanted to make it sooner rather than later. It also just so happens that it goes best with biryani, so this seemed like a good week to make it.
I never thought it would be possible to have too much garlic, but I did feel like I over did it. I think the cloves I used were just a bit bigger than average, the burani ended pretty strong and because of that kind of spicy and even seemed a bit acidic. Oh well, it was still tasty!
Disclaimer and Links: As I can’t just post the recipe from the book (I guess I don’t want to get in trouble over copyright) I am including links to similar recipes. That said, I didn’t make the linked recipes, so I can’t vouch for them. I’m only including them in case you want to make something similar, but don’t want to buy the book.
A Kapoor Chicken Biryani recipe online
A Kapoor Burani recipe online