Dum Biriyani Part 2 - దంబిరియాని రెండవ భాగం - Indian Recipes - గాయత్రి వంటిల్లు

Preparing Vegetables:

Take a microwave safe bowl and add potato pieces, Cauliflower florets, carrot pieces, capsicum pieces and green peas. Add around 30ml water to the vegetables and place this bowl in a microwave oven. Cover the bowl partially and cook on high power for 7 minutes. Allow 5 minutes standing time before removing the bowl from the oven. The vegetables look slightly under cooked. But do not worry—the remaining cooking will be done in oven when it is kept for Dum. Add the prepared marinade to the cooked vegetables and mix well. Keep these marinated vegetables aside for 30 minutes.

Other Preparations:

Heat a pan and add the remaining oil to it. When oil is hot add the raisins and fry them. Raisins when fried in hot oil swell. As soon as they swell remove them or else they get burnt. In the remaining oil add the cashew nuts and fry them till they attain golden color. Keep the fried cashew nuts aside. Now add sufficient quantity of sun dried onions and fry till they start changing color. When they are slightly golden in color, remove them. With the heat remaining in the fried onions they get nice color. Do not over fry them as even after removing from the oil they gets fried with the heat and oil absorbed by them.

Preheating Oven:

If you are using a microwave-grill convection oven, use the convection mode to cook the Biriyani. If you are using an OTG (Oven-Toaster-Grill) then first we need to do some preparations.

Converting an OTG to a Convection oven:

Find two heating elements at the bottom of the oven and two more heating elements at the top. Here we use two wire racks and two aluminum plates. Observe two different types of wire stands of the oven in the movie clip. One wire rack (Rack-1) is plain and the other rack (Rack – 2) is having an attachment for barbeque purpose. Take Rack – 2 and insert an aluminum plate in the barbeque attachment as shown in the movie clip. Now arrange this set in the lowest slot in the oven which comes just above the bottom heating elements. Take Rack – 1 and place another aluminum sheet on it. Arrange this set in the top most slot in the oven which comes just below the top heating elements. Now observe the setting in the movie clip. The place in between the two wire racks acts as a convection oven. When the oven is switched on at Top + Bottom mode the elements at the top and bottom of the oven gets heated up. There would be a temperature difference between both the aluminum plates because they are at different distances from the heating elements. This difference in temperature sets in convection currents in the air gap between the two plates. Thus the OTG works as a convection oven between these two plates. I have made bread in this oven and achieved an even browning. The time taken is slightly longer than the mechanically operated convection oven which has a fan in it.

Preheat the oven at 200^oC on Top + Bottom mode for 15 minutes.

Layering Biriyani:

Take two bowls and two sheets of aluminum foil. Line the inside of the bowls with the aluminum sheets. Add few drops of oil and coat it. Keep near the following ingredients:

1.Fried cashew nuts

2.Fried raisins

3.Fried sun dried onions

4.Yellow seasoned rice

5.Marinated Vegetables

6.Plain white rice

Now start layering. In each bowl first add some fried cashew nuts followed by fried raisins and fried sun dried onions. Then spread a layer of yellow rice. Above this spread a portion of marinated vegetables. Now sprinkle some fried sun dried onions, fried cashew nuts and fried raisins. Now spread some white rice. At this stage press the mixture down with your fingers. Then spread the remaining yellow rice and above this marinated vegetables. Now sprinkle the fried onions, fried cashew nuts and fried raisins. Finally spread the remaining white rice. You may arrange it the way you like. Only thing is that there should be a vegetable layer between two rice layers. Imagination is yours—the Biriyani should look colorful. Now bring the edges of the foil together and close the bowls.

Wear mittens and place these two bowls in the hot oven. Set the oven at 200^oC on Top + Bottom mode and cook on DUM for 45 minutes. The under cooked rice and under cooked vegetables get cooked in Dum taking water from the marinade. The ingredients get cooked in their own juices and the flavors criss-crosses in DUM cooking.

Serving:

After 45 minutes when the oven stops leave the Biriyani for few more minutes in the oven. Wear gloves and then remove the bowls from the oven. Be careful the bowls will be too hot—do not forget to wear mittens i.e., gloves. Open the foil and cover the bowl with a serving plate. Turn it up-side-down. Slowly remove the bowl along with the foil to see a layered Biriyani.

I personally like to arrange in separate bowls. When you invert the bowl in a serving plate we can see all the layers. It looks so colorful to eat. But when cooking on large scale use just one big bowl to arrange.

Serve this tasty hot Dum Biriyani with Onion Raita or Cucumber Raita.