Jonny69
03-06-2007, 22:59
Tonight's exciting installment of Cooking with Jonny69 is an Indian takeaway favourite: biryani. It's a spicy dry rice dish usually with chicken or lamb served with a vegetable curry on the side. Tonight I had all my ingredients prepared and ready when I realised I had no bloody rice left so I was forced, maverick cook style, to reach for the next best thing in the cupboard which was couscous.
Now not a lot of people know how to use couscous but it's an almost direct substitute where you'd normally have rice and if prepared properly isn't as grim as you've probably had it in the past. It soaks up flavour beautifully and prepares literally in minutes in just a bowl with some boiling water. It's really hard to get it wrong so I'll have to post more about it as I eat quite a lot of the stuff.
This makes 4 portions and I've done a 50/50 meat to veggie option as I'm an animal muncher and Sophie isn't. Should take about 20 minutes all in and reheats easily the next day.
Slice up half a red, yellow and green pepper
Slice one onion
Chop 4 cloves of garlic
Open a tin of chopped tomatoes or chop up 3-4 tomatoes
You should now have a nice pile of crunchy veggies, note how I've been good and used my green chopping board for the veg ;)
http://www.jonny69.co.uk/uploads/cooking/biryani/03-06-07_1850.jpg
In your pestle and mortar add one teaspoon of the following...
Coriander seed
Cumin seed
Turmeric
Garam masala
Black peppercorns
Curry powder
1/2 teaspoon chilli powder (or more if you like it HOT)
1/2 teaspoon of rock salt
Like so:
http://www.jonny69.co.uk/uploads/cooking/biryani/03-06-07_1853.jpg
And grind it up to a fine powder. By using rocksalt it all grinds up a lot easier and you can use already ground spice if you like. It's the garam masala that gives this dish its particular flavour so don't leave it out and all supermarkets sell it so no excuses!
Now we prepare the meat. Cube up some lamb or chicken, pop it into a bowl and add a splash of oil and about 1 1/2 to 2 teaspoons of the spice mix depending how much MEAT and stir it in well:
http://www.jonny69.co.uk/uploads/cooking/biryani/03-06-07_1908.jpg
Lay the meat out on some foil ready to cook under the grill or in the oven, this way you won't need to use more than one pan.
The couscous comes next. Easy peasy this is, take a bowl and a mug and have the kettle boiling. Pour half a mug of couscous into the bowl. Dissolve a quarter of a stock cube in half a mug of boiling water and pour it over the couscous and stir in, leave it for 5 minutes and it is done, all you need to do now is fluff ti up with a fork and it's ready to go. I also threw in 4 cardamom pods because I have stuff like that but they are optional, the stock soaks into the cardamoms and infuses into the couscous beautifully. So I did one bowl with beef stock and one with veggie stock, so if you're going all-meat you should use a whole mug of couscous with a whole mug of meaty stock :)
If you want to use rice (which I would probably recommend if you haven't used couscous before) then boil up a mug of rice in some stock.
Now we're ready to cook so get the grill on and get the meat cooking. Don't pour any juices away as they will be soaked with lovely meaty spicy flavour and that's going on the rest of the dish. Get a wok or big saucepan quite hot and add about 5 tablespoons of oil. This sounds like quite a lot but the couscous will soak it all up and it's not a fatty dish at all. Add the remaining spices to the oil then the garlic, fry for a few seconds and add the onion, followed by the pepper. Fry for a few minutes longer until the onion is opaque and spoon over half the tin of tomatoes. Let that cook down until the onions are soft and the colour has changed to a rich golden brown. The oil will begin to seperate from the mixture at this point and the tomatoes should have completely broken down to a thick gravy:
http://www.jonny69.co.uk/uploads/cooking/biryani/03-06-07_1917.jpg
Lucky my cameraphone does this so much justice eh :D
It's at this point that if you want a veggie and a meat option you should divide what's in the pan into 2 as the meaty stuff is going in next. Fluff the couscous or rice up with a fork, tip it in the pan and stir it all together. Allow it to fry for a few minutes to get it back up to temperature and add the meat and juices from the grill, stir it in and it's ready to serve:
http://www.jonny69.co.uk/uploads/cooking/biryani/03-06-07_1946.jpg
If everything looked as gross as Motorola makes it out to be I swear I wouldn't ever try and make this but trust me it smells divine and tastes delicious :)
Now not a lot of people know how to use couscous but it's an almost direct substitute where you'd normally have rice and if prepared properly isn't as grim as you've probably had it in the past. It soaks up flavour beautifully and prepares literally in minutes in just a bowl with some boiling water. It's really hard to get it wrong so I'll have to post more about it as I eat quite a lot of the stuff.
This makes 4 portions and I've done a 50/50 meat to veggie option as I'm an animal muncher and Sophie isn't. Should take about 20 minutes all in and reheats easily the next day.
Slice up half a red, yellow and green pepper
Slice one onion
Chop 4 cloves of garlic
Open a tin of chopped tomatoes or chop up 3-4 tomatoes
You should now have a nice pile of crunchy veggies, note how I've been good and used my green chopping board for the veg ;)
http://www.jonny69.co.uk/uploads/cooking/biryani/03-06-07_1850.jpg
In your pestle and mortar add one teaspoon of the following...
Coriander seed
Cumin seed
Turmeric
Garam masala
Black peppercorns
Curry powder
1/2 teaspoon chilli powder (or more if you like it HOT)
1/2 teaspoon of rock salt
Like so:
http://www.jonny69.co.uk/uploads/cooking/biryani/03-06-07_1853.jpg
And grind it up to a fine powder. By using rocksalt it all grinds up a lot easier and you can use already ground spice if you like. It's the garam masala that gives this dish its particular flavour so don't leave it out and all supermarkets sell it so no excuses!
Now we prepare the meat. Cube up some lamb or chicken, pop it into a bowl and add a splash of oil and about 1 1/2 to 2 teaspoons of the spice mix depending how much MEAT and stir it in well:
http://www.jonny69.co.uk/uploads/cooking/biryani/03-06-07_1908.jpg
Lay the meat out on some foil ready to cook under the grill or in the oven, this way you won't need to use more than one pan.
The couscous comes next. Easy peasy this is, take a bowl and a mug and have the kettle boiling. Pour half a mug of couscous into the bowl. Dissolve a quarter of a stock cube in half a mug of boiling water and pour it over the couscous and stir in, leave it for 5 minutes and it is done, all you need to do now is fluff ti up with a fork and it's ready to go. I also threw in 4 cardamom pods because I have stuff like that but they are optional, the stock soaks into the cardamoms and infuses into the couscous beautifully. So I did one bowl with beef stock and one with veggie stock, so if you're going all-meat you should use a whole mug of couscous with a whole mug of meaty stock :)
If you want to use rice (which I would probably recommend if you haven't used couscous before) then boil up a mug of rice in some stock.
Now we're ready to cook so get the grill on and get the meat cooking. Don't pour any juices away as they will be soaked with lovely meaty spicy flavour and that's going on the rest of the dish. Get a wok or big saucepan quite hot and add about 5 tablespoons of oil. This sounds like quite a lot but the couscous will soak it all up and it's not a fatty dish at all. Add the remaining spices to the oil then the garlic, fry for a few seconds and add the onion, followed by the pepper. Fry for a few minutes longer until the onion is opaque and spoon over half the tin of tomatoes. Let that cook down until the onions are soft and the colour has changed to a rich golden brown. The oil will begin to seperate from the mixture at this point and the tomatoes should have completely broken down to a thick gravy:
http://www.jonny69.co.uk/uploads/cooking/biryani/03-06-07_1917.jpg
Lucky my cameraphone does this so much justice eh :D
It's at this point that if you want a veggie and a meat option you should divide what's in the pan into 2 as the meaty stuff is going in next. Fluff the couscous or rice up with a fork, tip it in the pan and stir it all together. Allow it to fry for a few minutes to get it back up to temperature and add the meat and juices from the grill, stir it in and it's ready to serve:
http://www.jonny69.co.uk/uploads/cooking/biryani/03-06-07_1946.jpg
If everything looked as gross as Motorola makes it out to be I swear I wouldn't ever try and make this but trust me it smells divine and tastes delicious :)