Prawns Biryani

 

A few months  back I was craving for good prawns biryani. All my earlier attempts had ended up in very tasty rice but really hard prawns. While talking to my friend Priya, I realised that the issue was that I used to cook rice and prawns together and the prawns would get overcooked in the time rice takes to cook. She not only gave me her recipe but also cooked one casserole of yummy prawns biryani for me the next day. Thanks a lot Priya for this recipe!!

I think I must have made this some 6 times in the last 2 months  – that’s how much I liked this recipe.

Here is Priya’s version of prawns biryani with delicious succulent prawns

 

 

Ingredients

500 gms of prawns, cleaned , deshelled and deveined

4 onions – finely chopped

1 cup of mint

1 cup of coriander leaves

1 inch ginger

1 tsp cumin seeds

3-4 green chillies

7-8 cloves of garlic

Shahi Jeera – 1/2 tsp

Cardamom – 3

Cinnamon- 1 inch piece

Star Anise- 1

Pepper – 7/8

Bay Leaf – 1

Kasoori Methi – 1 tsp

Red chilli powder – 2 tsp

Haldi – 1/2 tsp

Salt

 

 

Method

1. Grind together 1 cup of mint, 1 cup of coriander leaves, 1 inch ginger, 1 tsp cumin seeds, 3-4 green chillies and 7-8 cloves of garlic to a chutney like consistency and keep aside
2. Marinate the prawns in salt, 1 ts red chilli powder and pinch of turmeric and keep aside.
3. Wash 2 cups of basmati rice and keep aside.
4. Take a deep bottomed vessel and add oil for deep frying. Add 2 finely chopped onions to it and deep fry till brown. Drain the onions and keep aside.
5. Take a pan and add 1 tbsp oil. Add shahi jeera, pepper, cloves, cinnamon, star anise, cardamom, bay leaf and saute for a few minutes
6. Add 2 finely chopped onions to the oil and fry till almost brown. You can add a pinch of salt to hasten the cooking
7. Add the green chutney to the onions and saute for 5 mins. Add turmeric, red chilli powder and saute tell
8. Next add the washed rice and mix everything well.I added a pinch of kasoori methi here to the rice. Adjust the salt according to taste.
9. Now add 4 cups of water to the rice and cook it in a rice cooker. Cooking it in the rice cooker ensures that the rice is just about done and the grains are separate. Take care not to use too much water, else the rice can become soggy.
10. As the rice is cooking, Preheat the oven at 200 degrees celsius.
11. Once the rice is ready, its time to layer the biryani. Add rice to the base of a baking dish. Layer it with prawns and fried onions, some finely chopped mint and coriander leaves followed by rice, prawns and so on.
12. Cover the dish with an aluminium foil and bake for 30 mins at 200 degrees celsius. Check if the prawns is cooked at the end of 30 mins – if needed you can bake it for some more time till the prawns are cooked properly.
13. Serve with dahi raita

Dahi raita recipe

Finely chop tomatoes, onions and cucumber. Add 2 green chillies slit at the centre. Add dahi, chaat powder, jeera powder, salt and sugar to taste. Refrigerate before serving.

 

Tagged with: baking, non vegetarian, prawns, rice