Chettinadu Biriyani | Vegetarian

When I heard of colorful dishes the first recipe that came to my mind is biriyani. That is colorful as well as all time kids favourite at my place. But I have already posted Biriyani recipes.
Egg biriyani
Khushka biriyani
Malabar chicken biriyani

But then I have never posted a vegetable biriyani. Yeah its a rare occurance in my home. That is when I came across this chettinadu biriyani recipe in Srivalli's space. Tamilnadu - an Indian state has very varied types of cuisine wherein the chettinad cuisine is very famous for its spicyness and tanginess. I am also an avid fan of Chettinad recipes - that too non-veg recipes.

In chettinadu biriyani recipe the spice ingredients that bring out a difference is marathi moggu, and star anise. I just got these spices from the store but as Srivalli says I am not sure if the marathi moggu I got is the actual marathi moggu.

If you don't get this marathi moggu, the same can be replaced with extra cloves. It might not give the exact taste. Also, in chettinad recipes the Jeeraga samba rice is used instead of the basmati rice. The jeeraga samba rice is available in the name of Jeera rice in some of the stores. I always use Jeera rice for making Biriyanis and fried rice since somehow we both don't like basmati rice... Another speciality in chettinadu cuisine is using shallots (small onions) instead of the bigger ones.

Ingredients:

Jeeraga Samba Rice - 3 cups
Mixed Vegetables - 2 cups
Small onions / Shallots- 3/4 cup
Tomatoes, finely chopped - 2 nos
Green Chillies - 4 nos
Ginger Garlic paste- 2 tbsp
Red Chilli powder- 2 tsp
Coriander powder- 2 tsp
Turmeric powder- 1/4 tsp
Pudina / Mint leaves- handful
Coriander leaves- handful bunch
Spring onions - few
Cashew Nuts- 20 nos
Ghee- 2 tbsp
Salt to taste
Water- 4 and 1/2 cups

Spices:

Bay leaves- 2 nos
Cinnamon stick 1" piece- 2 nos
Cardamom- 4 nos
Cloves- 6 nos
Marati moggu- 1 no
Annachi poo / Star Anise- 1
Javitri / Mace - 1 no
Oil- 1/4 cup

Method:

• Wash the rice and soak for 30 minutes.
• Wash and dice the vegetables like potato, carrot into medium cubes, cauliflower into medium florets, slice green beans into 1" lengthwise and some green peas.
• Peel and chop the shallots. Chop the tomatoes. Fry the cashewnuts in ghee until golden brown. Clean and chop both pudina and coriander leaves. Slit the green chillies into half.
• Heat oil in a pressure cooker, add the whole spices to the hot oil and saute for 1 minute.
• Next add the shallots, green chillies to the pan, saute until onion turns pale. Add the ginger garlic paste and saute until raw smell leaves. Add the mixed vegetables to the pan and fry for 3 minutes. Add chopped pudina and coriander leaves (reserve some to garnish) to the pan and saute for 1 minute.
• At this stage add chopped tomatoes, red chilli powder, turmeric powder, coriander powder to the vegetables and mix well until tomatoes are tender. Add water to the pan, slightly cover with lid and bring vegetable mixture to boil.
• When the water reaches rolling boil stage, add drained rice along with required salt to the pan. Stir well to combine everything and cover with lid, Pressure cook for 1 whistle then lower the flame and cook for 2 minutes.
• Once the pressure falls, remove the lid, garnish with fired cashews, coriander leaves and spring onions.

Serve with onion Raitha

Note:

• I served this with raita and boiled eggs.
• In chettinadu, this is usually served with pickle, raita.
• If jeera rice is not available, use short basmati rice
• I added spring onions since it was growing in my kitchen garden. This is not part of chettinadu cuisine.

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Batata Poha

Poha and Paav is like Idli and Dosa for the Maharashtrians. I have spent some years of my childhood in Maharashtra surrounded with so many marathi people. I have seen everyday along with a bottle of milk, a packet of paav gets delivered. They start their day with a tea and paav.

That reminds me - in maharashtra we used to get milk in bottles. Daily half litre glass bottle used to be delivered with milk. And we have to return the previous day's bottle. So that was recycling of bottles. It would have been good if that trend had continued. I don't know why milk was introduced in plastic covers later... 

So we have all these famous paav related recipes like paav bhaji, vada paav, batata paav, masala paav, misal paav etc.... Hmmm I have to post all these recipes. And since Maharashtra is one of the largest potato farming state, the maharashtrians use potato in almost all their recipes. Batata is potato in Marathi.

Batata poha is again served with plain paav or paav roasted in ghee. Since I didn't get paav I served it along with bread slices. I am posting this for kid's delight - colorful dishes since I felt yellow and red are a good color combination. This recipe has potato and groundnuts. 

Ingredients:

Poha / Aval / Beaten rice - 250 grams

Potato (cubed) - 150 grams

Onion (finely chopped) - 75 grams

Green chilly (finely chopped) - 1

Curry leaves - 1 sprig

Mustard - 1 tsp

Cumin seeds / Jeera - 1/2 tsp

Peanuts - 2 tbsp

Turmeric powder - 1 tsp

Oil - 2 tbsp

Salt - to taste

Method:

• Rinse the poha in clean running water. Use a strainer to rinse the poha. While rinsing, the poha absorbs enough water and it becomes soft. The poha must become soft but remain intact, whole and separate. If the poha does not become soft, sprinkle few drops of water on the poha in the strainer.
• Sprinkle the turmeric powder and little salt in the poha. Mix gently.
• Roast the peanuts in a small pan till they become crunchy and keep aside.
• In a kadai, heat oil. Before sauting the aloo/potatoes, just sprinkle some salt and mix it well with the potatoes. Immediately put the potatoes in the hot oil. By using this technique, the potatoes will have salt in them and yet do not loose water and become moist before sauting.
• Saute the potatoes till light golden color and crisp. Keep aside.
• In the same kadai, add the mustard seeds to the hot oil.
• When they splutter, add the cumin seeds. when the cumin seeds sizzle, add the onions. Saute the onions till they become translucent and soften.
• Now add the curry leaves, green chili and roasted peanuts. saute for a minute.
• Add the fried potatoes and then the poha. Mix gently with the rest of the mixture.
• Saute the entire poha mixture for 2-3 minutes on a low flame, stirring gently in between.
• Switch off the flame and cover the pan tightly with a lid for the poha to get steamed for a few minutes.

Note:

• We can also add lemon juice to this poha. Once the poha is done, sprinkle approx 1 tsp lime juice on the batata poha. Mix it well with the poha. Or serve the batata poha with cut lemon pieces.
• We can also garnish the batata poha with little grated coconut and coriander leaves.

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Semiya Pulav / Vermicelli Pulav

I am participating in BM #50. And this week I have selected colorful dishes for kids :-)

Since we need a colorful dish I thought of preparing a colorful rice item for lunch box. But I have already posted pulavs and biriyanis. That is when I saw a pack of MTR semiya wherein a recipe of Semiya pulav was given. And I imediately thought of trying it.

I have also seen this recipe in Rak's kitchen. So combined both the recipes and made it in my style. This is the first time I used MTR semiya. The usual semiya I use is very thin when compared to MTR semiya. So kids after tasting this semiya pulav said its veg noodles :-). But they loved it thorougly.

This recipe can be made very quickly and would be a good idea to serve for guests with raita and pickle.

Ingredients:

Vermicelli/semiya(roasted) - 350 grams
Mixed vegetables (chopped) - 100 grams
Onion - 50 grams
Tomato - 40 grams
Mint leaves - little
Coriander leaves - little
Coconut milk (thin) - 2 cups
Salt - to taste

To grind to a smooth paste:

Cardamom/Elaichi - 1
Cinnamon - a small piece
Cloves - 1
Star anise - a small piece
Fennel - 1 tsp
Ginger - a small piece
Green chillies - 4
garlic - 5 pods

To temper:

Ghee - 4 tbsp
Jeera / cumin seeds - 1 tsp
Bay leaf - 1

Method:

• Roast the vermicelli with a tsp of ghee in medium flame,evenly with out changing its colour(if it not raosted vermicelli),you can also skip this part too
• Grind the items given under ‘to grind’ table to a smooth paste with very less water.
• Heat a heavy bottomed pan (I used pot shaped cooker) with ghee and temper with the items given under ‘to temper’ table.
• Add sliced onion fry till onion turns just transparent and add the ground paste. Fry in medium flame for 2-3 minutes,taking care to not to burn it.
• Add the chopped veggies along with tomato(if desired) and the mint and coriander leaves and fry in medium flame for 3 minutes. Add the coconut milk and bring to boil,add required salt
• Then add the vermicelli.Let it boil till it absorbs all the coconut milk and then keep the flame in lowest possible and cook covered for 4-5 minutes.
• Garnish with cashews fried in ghee if you want,or just simply with chopped coriander leaves… serve hot with raita of your choice!

Note:

• If you make the pulav with proper care/just like we make our rice pulav, you will get an equally yummy,delightful pulav.
• Vegetables I used are-carrot,beans,capsicum and cauliflower.
• Don't cook for long time than mentioned as it will make the vermicelli sticky. Also increasing the water/coconut milk will make it sticky and gooey. Using less water ratio and cooking in low flame is the key to get it nice!
• You can grind the mint leaves along with the grinding items.
• You can use ginger garlic paste and add the whole masalas while tempering and avoid the grinding part,if you are lazy to do grinding!

Check out the Blogging Marathon page for the other Blogging Marathoners doing this BM