Vegatable Biriyani

Ingredients:

• Basmathi rice - 3 cups
• water - 6 cups
• Onion - 2 sliced lengthwise
• ginger - 2 inch piece
• garlic - 6 cloves
• green chillies - 5
• carrot - 3 cut into cubes
• potatoes - 3 medium sized cut into cubes
• frozen green peas - 1cup
• perrumjeerakam /fennel powder - 2 tsp
• tomatoes - 4 chopped
• almond/cashew paste - 1/4 cup
• salt  to taste
• butter - 1 stick
• grambu - 4 nos
• patta/cinnamon sticks - 2-3 inch pieces
• bay leaves - 3 nos
• Oil - 1/4 cup
• raisins- 1/4 cups
• cashews- 1/4 cups

Directions:

• Grind ginger ,garlic and chillies into fine paste.Also grind the chopped tomatoes into paste. Powder 6tsp of feenel seeds or perrumjeerakam in a coffee grinder.
• Heat a small frying pan with a tsp of butter fry the raisins,stirring continuously until they turn plump or look like golden grapes and keep them aside; fry the cashew nuts in the same pan till they turn golden brown and keep it aside.
• In the small mixie grinder  powder 1/4 cup of blanched almonds/cashew. Add little water and grind to fine paste.
• Fry onion in a pan  till brown and keep aside.
• In the same pan  add 2 tsp to ghee and  add all the vegetables and cook on medium low flame adding salt to taste .The vegetables should be 3/4 cooked .
• In the meantime heat a pan and add 3 tsp butter, add grambu,cinnamon sticks and bay leaves. In a minute add the rice and fry for 5- 10 min or till the rice slightly changes color. Tranfer the rice to the rice cooker and add 6 cups of water ,salt to taste  and 3tsp of ginger-garlic- chilly paste.Stir well and allow to cook. Once the rice cooker goes to warm mode, unplug the cooker and remove the lid of the rice cooker and keep aside for 10 - 15 mins, so as not to get sticky.
• Heat rest of the butter in a deep vessel and add 2 tsp of fennel seed powder. Stir well with a wooden spatula.Add  3 tbsp of  ginger-garlic- chilly paste. Fry for a minute or till the raw smell goes away.Now add the grinded tomato paste, stir well and cook till the tomatoes are fully cooked and till you can see a layer of oil over the mixture. At this point add the half of the fried onion,  fried vegetables  and the almond paste and mix well. Remove from heat and keep aside .
• Take a aluminium tray or a oven safe dish; spread a layer of rice at the bottom,followed by the vegetable masala and 1/4 tsp of perrumjeerakam powder; spread rest of the rice ,vegetable masala over and so on . At the very end you can garnish with fried onion , raisins and cashews.
• Serve warm with raita, pappadam and pickle of your choice.

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