Sunday, March 29, 2009

Paneer Biryani



Made a biryani for dinner Sunday night. The family seemed to enjoy it. I know I did. Made some paneer with ground cumin, a little salt and some fresh ground green peppercorns from Penzeys.
Ground up a spice powder of coriander, cumin seed, whole cloves, cinnamon stick, white Indian poppy seed, and black peppercorns. I didn't have coriander seeds and so I used already ground coriander from Open Harvest. Grind up 2 serrano chiles, two garlic cloves and two teaspoons fresh ginger and keep seperate.



Cube a cup of paneer, sprinkle it with a half teaspoon of the spice powder, a half teaspoon salt, gently mix in two tablespoons yogurt and set it aside.

Wash one and a half cups basmati rice and then cook it in hot oil with a bay leaf, 2 green cardamon pods, salt, chili powder and turmeric. Fry it for 4 minutes and put it aside on a dry plate.

In the same pan, add a little ghee then a quarter cup peas, fresh green beans and the serrano/garlic/ginger mix. Cook for a few minutes, add a quarter cup yogurt, dash of salt and fry this for a couple minutes.

Over the veggies add some chopped cilantro, a few more pinches of the spice powder and half the rice. Sprinkle on some more spice powder and the last of the rice. Put a a few saffron threads on if you have some, I used three. It's expensive! Add two cups of water, cook till water is absorbed (20 minutes).
Get your oven up to 300 at this point. When the rice is ready, oil a baking dish, spread half the rice in the dish, spread the paneer cubes over this then cover with the rest of the rice. Add a half cup water and cook covered with foil for 30 minutes. Enjoy!
Have a good week everyone!

3 comments:

Mr. T said...

Man you make it sound easy! Sounds great. I really need to try out some of your recipes.

Beerorkid said...

I am going to try and learn a bit of this Indian cooking and Theresa said she would try it. This looks like a perfect recipe to try.

Thanks

Chris said...

Emailed you both a more detailed recipe.