Vegetable biriyani in Tamil Nadu Style

Vegetable biriyani in Tamil Nadu Style, originally uploaded by lorises.

This vegetable biriyani is one of the quick ones where you put all the spices together and let the vegetables cooked with the rice. You can also do the whole thing in pressure cooker but the vegetables need to be added later... . I generally pressure cook chicken/mutton/beef biriyani. Otherwise just cook in the rice cooker or in a regular pot with lid or in a dutch oven. Since I learn this from my Tamilian friends in Mundanthurai, especially Pushpa Akka in the Mundanthurai Guest House Kitchen and from my friend Sara' s mother (U. Saravana Kumar). Thanks go to both of them.

I used long grain basmati rice here. In Tamil Nadu they use biriyani rice which are short grain fine quality unboiled rice.

Recipe:

Rice: 3 cups
Vegetables: carrots. broccoli, bell pepper, cauliflower, peas
tomatoes: 2-3
onions: 1 big red one
garlic: 4 cloves
ginger: 1 tbsp
Mint leaves: fresh 1 sprig
Coriander leaves: 2 aprig
Thai green chiies: 2-3 chopped
Turmeric: 1/2 tsp
Salt: as you want
curry leaves: 3-4
Black pepper: 1/4 tsp or less
chilli powder: 1/2 tsp or as you want
coriander powder: 1tbsp
aniseed/fennel: 1 tsp
nutmeg: 1/8 tsp
star anise: 1
clove: 2-3
cinnamon: 1/2 inch stick or powdered 1/8 tsp
cardamom: 2
oil: to fry

I first add all the whole spices and green chili in there. Add garlic ginger and onion fry them well add the chopped mint leaves. Then add tomatoes. Fry them well. add vegetables and then add rice. Fry them for little bit. Add water: for three cups add 6 cups of water. Cover the lid and let it cook until the rice is done. You can add some more mint leaves and coriander leaves at this point too. Remove from the hat mix it well granish it with coriander leaves and serve hot.

Ghugni - a chat/snack from the street of Eastern India

Ghugni - a chat/snack from the street of Eastern India, originally uploaded by lorises.

Here is the recipe for this yummilacious snack that we always wanted to get from the street vendors! I still remember our local vendor Jaydev-da who had a cart full of delicious snack like ghugni, aloo dam, dhoka and all sorts of chops (fritters) and come to our school every dat at tiffin time ( I guess it is equivalent of lunch time) here in the USA. We did not have free school lunch option, neither we had a cafeteria. So the option was either you bring your own tiffin from home or you can buy from the vendors they would allow during the tiffin time in the school complex!

Recipe:

Matar (yellow peas): 1/2 lbs soaked in water for 4-5 hours
onions: 1 medium size onion chopped some and some chooped with soaked with lemon juice
potatoes: 1 medium size potato
oil: 2 tsp
garlic: 1 clove chopped
ginger: 1 tsp chopped
cumin seeds: 1/2 tsp
bay leaf: 1
cumin and corainder powder: 1 tbsp
salt: as you want
turmeic powder: 1/2 tsp
chat masala: 1 tbsp to sprinkle on the ghugni (optional)
lemon: 1
amchur powder: 1 tbsp (optional)
chili powder: as you taste
coriander leaves/cilantro: 2 sprigs
green chilies (thai or serrano or jalapeno): chopped some

Soak the dried yellow peas for 4-5 hours. If you have a pressure cooker then this enough and if you do not have a pressure cooker then soak it for longer. Boil them in water with salt, half of the chopped onions, garlic and ginger. When it is cooked (in pressure cooker it takes about 10 minutes) get it out of the stove. Meanwhile in small pan or wok heat the oil. In hot oil add cumin seeds, bay leaf and rest of the ginger. Add turmeric, chili powder, amchur, cumin and coriander powder in the oil. Add the potatoes and saute them in medium heat for five minutes. Then add the boiled peas and let it boil with some additional water. In case of no amchur you can add lemon juice while cooking or tomatoes if availabel during the season.

Boil until water is some what dry in simmering heat for about 10 minutes or so. You can garnish with onions with lemon juice, sprinkled chat masala, coriander leaves and green chilies.

Misti Doi (Sweet Yogurt - Indian style)

I have been meaning to make sweet yogurt (misti doi) that is part of bengali culture in some ways for a long time! I had done it in the past but at that time i had matka (unsealed clay pot) for making doi! I had got it from India! However, since that was broke in one of our moves across US, I have not got a new one! Now that i am making plain yogurt at home regularly, i thought of making it again! My father used to make at home some times when we would have lots and lots of milk from the two Jersey hybrid cows we had.... that was almost 25 years ago....Gosh, we are getting old! 80s now is ancient:-)

Anyway, here is what I did.... I made it from 2% milk. It would have been better if I had used whole milk. But this was good enough! My daughter complained saying it was not like the one you get in all the sweet shops in Kolkata!

Recipe:

Whole Milk/2% milk (in the USA): 1/2 gallon
Sugar (brown sugar is better): 4-5 tbsp or as much as you like

You can also mix some Grade A maple syrup as a substitute of khejur gur (date palm sugar). In Bengal, you can get yogurt made with khejur gur/nalen gur (date palm sugar) instead of cane sugar. That gives a special flavor! I find that Maple syrup and Khejur gur have very similar flavor. Not surprising... they both are made of sap from the plants even though the plants are from complete different family in two different continent!

I boiled the mild and stir it with a ladle as it was boiling. You make it some what thick... half a gallon should end up with 2/3 of the total milk! Then cool it but again need to stir it so that it does not get the cream layer (malai) on the top! You can add sugar as you taste while boiling or while cooling it down. When it is warm, add the curd culture in it and mix it well. Now get a clean pot and use some of the culture to layer it one the inside wall of the pot! Add the milk and let it set for overnight in a warm place. I do it inside the oven or on top of the stove! you can also cover the pot with some folded towel or a tea cozy! Next day it will be set and then you can transfer it to the refrigerator to eat later.

dinner sample...

Here are some regional variation in Indian vegetarian cooking! I cooked Shukto which is mixed vegetable dish with bitter gourd or any other bitter vegetables or leaves in it, Split pea lentil soup (matar dal) with asian white daikon. Both are from Bengal and the third one is green beans sauted with spices and coconut. this recipe is from North Karnataka!

Shukto:

It taste bitter because of the bitter gourd or any other bitter vegtables. That is why you eat this mix vegetables with rice at first and then eat other dishes such as dal, sauted or fried vegetables, meat or fish and sweets at the end. A lot of non India friends ahve hard time eating bitter vegetables. Therefore, you have to be willing to try and like bitter food. The intensity of the bitterness depends on how much bitter gourd you use. Here I used:
green plantain - 1
zucchini: 2 small one
potatoes: 2 small red skin
eggplant: 1 long Japanese one
bitter gourd: 1 or 2 small Indian variety

If you have pumpkin or yellow squash you can use that instead of zucchini. you can add radish or white daikon and string beans or French beans there. In India, combination depends on the seasonal vegetables. There are a lot of variation of this dish. In fact, every family or person have their own recipes. And some times cook it differently depending on the availability of spices and vegetables!

Spices:
mustard seeds: 1/2 tsp
panch phoron: a mixture of five spice mix from India (optional)
mustard and white poppy seeds paste: 1 TBSP
oil for cooking: 1 tsp or so ( I use little mustard oil for traditional flavor)
salt: as you want
turmeric: 1/4 tsp or less
ghee: 1 tsp (optional)

Mustrad and poppy seeds paste:
soak both of them in water and grind them in a grinder.

process:
Cut all the vegetables in to small cubes. I use a wok to cook this. In hot oil add mustard seeds and when they splatter I add all the vegetables. saute them for a while with salt and turmeric powder. When the vegetables are some what soft add the mustard seeds paste and let it simmer for another 5-10 minutes. when they are some what dry remove it from the stove.
I like to add the panch phoron later on. But it is not necessary. In a small pan roast the panch phorn ( five spice mix) and coarsely grind it. Add them on the top of the cooked vegetables. ghee is also optional and you can add on tsp at the end!