Egg Biriyani

 

I had tried quite a few variations of Chicken biriyani, fish biriyani but I have never tried Egg Biriyani until very recently. Like any other biriyani preparation, egg biriyani too can be cooked in a variety of ways. For simplicity of the purpose, I made it simply by cooking everything together, but if you want to be more authentic then you may cook the rice and eggs separately, combine them together in a large flat bottomed vessel and cook through slow heating for 25 minutes just as done in traditional dum biriyanis.

 

 

I have used garam masala for the biriyani, but if you want you may use biriyani masala easily available in Indian stores for the same purpose. Since garam masala adds an essence to the whole concoction, be mindful of using a garam masala of good brand or like me, you may dry roast the whole spices at home and prepare your own home-made garam masala powder.

Ingredients:                                                               Cooking time: 30-35 minutes ü  8-10 eggs (hard boiled) ü  2 potatoes (boiled and cut into big cubes) ü  1 large onion (julienned) ü  1 tbsp ginger-garlic paste ü  3 cups of long grain basmati rice (soaked in water for half an hour and drained) ü  1/2 cup of cashew nuts ü  3 tbsp of golden raisins ü  1 cup of yogurt, beaten ü  5-6 green chillies (slit) ü  1 cup of coriander leaves (chopped) ü  1/2 cup of mint leaves (chopped) or 2 tbsp dried mint powder ü  1 heaped tsp cumin powder ü  1 heaped tsp coriander powder ü  2 tbsp garam masala powder ü  1/2 cup of lukewarm milk with a pinch of saffron soaked in it ü  Lemon juice, extracted from 1 lemon ü  White oil ü  Ghee For sauté: ü  3-4 green cardamoms ü  2 brown cardamoms ü  4-5 cloves ü  1 inch cinnamon stick ü  2 bay leaves ü  1 tsp black peppercorns Method: 1) Make few incisions around the eggs and shallow fry them in hot oil till golden brown in color. Shallow fry the potato cubes till golden brown in colour.  Keep them aside. 2) Now into the same oil, add the ingredients for sauté and wait till they begin to sizzle. 3) Add onion and fry till onion turns translucent in color. Add ginger-garlic paste, cumin powder, coriander powder and garam masala powder. Sauté the spice mixture for 3-4 minutes. 4) Add yogurt, cashew nuts, raisins and green chillies. Sauté again for 2 minutes. 5) Now add the rice and 6 cups of water. Add salt and cook covered on medium low heat till rice is 80% cooked. (The amount of water to be added for cooking rice varies depending on the rice quality. Normally it is 2:1 ratio meaning 2 cups of water needed for cooking 1 cup of rice.) 6) Add saffron infused milk, coriander leaves and mint leaves. Quickly stir in. Cook on low heat for few more minutes till rice is cooked through. 7) Toss the fried potatoes into the biriyani. Add ghee and squeeze lemon juice. 8) Toss the fried eggs into the biriyani before serving.