Biryani with vegetables

Dassana Amit’s restaurant-style biryani with vegetables layers basmati rice with a vegetable gravy, freshly ground spices, browned onions, mint and saffron milk. This selected stovetop version uses carrots, potato, button mushrooms, French beans and fresh green peas, and is served hot.

The rice is rinsed in water, soaked and strained. The vegetables are chopped and held aside. Cinnamon, cloves, green cardamom and mace are ground for the biryani masala. Separate water is heated with the rice’s green cardamom, cinnamon, bay leaf, star anise, black cardamom, cloves and mace; salt and rice are added, and the partly cooked rice is drained in a colander.

The yogurt is whisked until smooth. Sunflower oil is heated in a stovetop pressure cooker and the supplied sliced onions are stirred until golden; a quarter portion is removed for the layers. Ginger and garlic crushed in a mortar and pestle join the remaining onions, followed by the ground masala and red chilli powder. The chopped vegetables and peas are stirred in, then the yogurt, cooking water and salt.

The vegetable gravy is pressure-cooked, then checked once the pressure has dropped. If needed, it simmers uncovered until the vegetables are tender and the gravy is medium-thick, with more of the same cooking water only if it looks dry. Saffron strands are mixed into milk in a small bowl and left to steep.

In a separate thick-bottomed pan, half the gravy is covered with half the rice, then portions of mint, the reserved fried onions, saffron milk and ghee. The same ingredients form a second layer. The pan is sealed with foil and a tight lid and cooked over a heated tawa. After resting with the heat off, the biryani is served hot with raita, pickle, salad and papad.