There is no love sincerer than the love of food. —–George Bernard Shaw

Sunday 19 February 2012

Prawn Biryani

Prawns are one of my favourites, and I cook them in numerous ways. I shall share all the recipes in due course.
A biryani is very quick and easy to jostle up, and a very good variation from eating prawn curry all the time.
Have a lime pickle handy, it goes really well with this dish.



Ingredients:
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Medium Prawns(peeled and deveined) - 250 gms
Basmati Rice - 1 cup
Whole garam masala ( 3 cloves, 1 bay leaf, A small piece of cinnamon, 3 cardamoms)
Turmeric powder
Red Chilli powder
Salt
Biryani masala
Onions
Oil
Dry fruits for garnish

Method:
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1. Wash the prawns. Coat them in salt, 1/2 tsp turmeric and red chilli powder and set aside for 30 minutes.
2. Wash and soak the rice for 30 minutes.After 30 minutes strain the water and set aside.
3. Slice onions finely and fry them in oil till brown and crisp.The trick is to drop only a small amount of onions in oil and fry them quickly on high heat, taking care not to burn them.
4. In a thick bottomed pan, put 2 tbsp of oil, add the whole garam masala and 1 1/2 tsp of biryani masala. Add the rice and salt and fry for 2-3 minutes.You can add turmeric for colour.Add 2 cups of boiling water and stir well so that no rice sticks to the bottom. Let the rice cook and absorb the water.Add more if necessary.In the end there should be no excess water left and the rice should be about 90% cooked.
                                                                      OR
If you find cooking rice in an open pan daunting,cook rice in a pressure cooker and just add the cooked rice to the masala in the above step (Made your life easier :-)).Fry it off and set aside.
5. Spread the rice on a plate taking care not to break the grains.
6. In a deep and thick bottommed pan, add 3 tbsp of oil. Fry the prawns for about 5 mins or till the water they ooze out gets dried.
7. Add the rice,dry fruits and fried onions to the prawns and give it a little mix. Cover tightly and cook on low flame for around 10 minutes.Check occassionally to see if the biryani is sticking to the bottom of the pan.
Serve hot with lime / any spicy pickle.

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