Mushroom Pulav

I had a look into Rak's kitchen for the first time when Sowmya at Nivedhanam's announced the contest    tried-and-tastedraks-kitchen. Raji is maintaining a wonderful food blog and I found that there are so many recipes which I can keep a hand upon.

I came across this mushroom-biryani recipe which sounded easy and delicious. I had a couple of mushrooms back home and was thinking of preparing something new and I liked the idea of mushroom biriyani since this would be a nice lunch box food. Needless to say this was an instant hit back at home. Moreover the rice was so delicious at night than morning, that people went back for second and third serving.



Now H and myself had an interesting argument over this. When I presented this as mushroom biriyani, he came back saying "How can this be mushroom biriyani? This should be mushroom rice or mushroom pulav". And the reasoning he gave behind this is that according to H briyani is falvoured rice + meat prepared in the dum style, like layers of rice and layers of meat. Now this was not acceptable for me. Of course we have vegetable biriyani which is very famous and many people love it. So I started surfing the internet to counter attack him. From wikipedia I got the following, "The difference between biryani and pullao is that while pullao may be made by cooking the items together, biryani is used to denote a dish where the rice (plain or fried) is cooked separately from the thick sauce (a greatly reduced curry of meat or vegetables). The curry and the rice are then brought together and layered, resulting in a dish of the contrasting flavors of flavored rice (which is cooked separate with spices) and intensely flavored sauce and meat or vegetables"

Though the site doesn't say that biriyani is restricted to meat, I finally had to give in since I had prepared this by cooking all items together. So I am calling this mushroom pulav. For the original recipe please follow Rak's Mushroom biriyani. I didn't make any changes. Just changed the type of rice used. Instead of Basmati, I used Jeeraga samba rice which I normally use to make Biriyani.

Ingredients:

Mushroom Biriyani Recipe:
Jeeraga Samba Rice - 1.25 cups
Cleaned Button mushrooms - 350 grams
Onion - 100 grams chopped lengthwise
Tomato puree - from 75 grams of tomato
Thick Curd - 2  tbsp
Ginger-Garlic paste - 2.5 tsp
Garam Masala powder - 1.5 tsp
Red Chilli powder - 1/4 tsp
Oil - 1 tsp
Ghee - 1/2 tbsp
Water - 2 cups
Salt - to taste

To grind to a paste:
Coriander leaves -  4 tbsp
Mint leaves -  3 tbsp
Green Chillies - 1
Fennel seeds - 1/2 tsp

To temper:
Cloves -2
Cardamom -1
Cinnamon - 1/4 inch piece
Bayleaf -1



Method:

• Grind the ingredients under 'to grind' with little water to a fine paste. Set aside.
• Wash the rice and set aside. 
• Heat oil+ghee in a pressure cooker and add the items under 'to temper' then add ginger garlic paste and saute for a minute.
• Add onion and saute till its golden brown. Then add tomato puree saute till raw smell leaves, then add coriander mint paste and saute till raw smell leaves.
• Add red chilli powder, garam masala powder, required salt and saute till the masalas is well blended. Then add mushroom and saute for 2mins until water leaves and it starts softening. Then add curd.
• Once the masala is nicely blended with the mushrooms , add the rice - give a quick stir.
• Add the required amount of water and cook on high flame. Let the water start boiling and once half the amount of water is consumed by the rice, close the pressure cooker and cook for one whistle. 
• After the first whistle, simmer the gas stove and cook for another 2 minute. Switch off the stove.
• Once pressure releases, fluff the rice with a fork carefully without breaking the rice.

Yummy Mushroom Pulav is ready!!!! Serve with raita of your choice.

Linking this to tried-and-tastedraks-kitchen and delightsofcooking


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