Shrimp Biriyani

Shrimp biriyani is a variation to the chicken biriyani I usually make at home. Since I made chicken biriyani twice last week, I gave a try for the shrimp biriyani and it came out really well. Here's me sharing the ingredients and cooking process. I used homemade biriyani masala powder instead of adding the biriyani spices as such. I will write a post on making biriyani masala powder soon.

Ingredients:

1.5 cup basmati rice
2 large onions
1 big tomato
1.5 tsp of biriyani masala powder
4 green chillies, slit longitudinally
2 tsp ginger garlic paste
1 tsp salt
1 tsp ghee
2 tbsp oil
1 tbsp chopped mint leaves
2 tbsp chopped coriander leaves
10-12 peeled jumbo shrimps
1 tbsp curd

Steps:

1. Wash and soak the basmati rice for 20 minutes.

2. In a heavy bottomed vessel, (i usually take a pressure cooker) add oil. Once it's warm add ginger garlic paste. Saute it till the raw smell of ginger garlic goes away.

3. Clean the shrimp and wash it well and keep it aside.

4. Add slit green chillies and saute for 2 minutes.

5. Then add chopped onions and saute till it turns light brown.

6. Add chopped tomatoes to the pan and saute till it becomes mushy.

7. Now, add biriyani masala and stir well for a minute.

8. Add shrimp and a tbsp of curd. Stir well and let it cook till the pan oozes out oil. If there is more water, let it be on the flame for few more minutes. It should not be watery at all, should be in a gravy consistency. Otherwise, biriyani will become mushy. Then add chopped mint and coriander leaves.

9. Meanwhile, boil 3 cups of water with a pinch of salt. Once it starts boiling well, add soaked rice and let it cook for 7-8 minutes. By then, the rice would have half cooked.

10. Once the shrimp biriyani masala oozes out oil, filter the half cooked rice and add it to the biriyani masala and mix it well so that the rice blends well with the masala. Also do it carefully without breaking the rice. Keep the flame in the lowest range.

11. Now comes the interesting part, the so-called "dum" process. I use 3-4 sheets of newspaper to cover the biriyani pan (pressure cooker in my case).

12. Take thick sheets of newspaper that doesn't allow the steam to escape from the biriyani pan. Cover the pan with newspaper and then place a lid upside down. This is to make sure the newspaper sheets close the lid completely. Fill another heavy vessel with water and place it on top of the lid.
Let it stand for 20 minutes.

13. After 20 minutes of dum process, switch off the flame. Remove the water vessel, lid and newspaper sheets from the biryani pan.

14. Add a tsp of ghee and mix the biriyani once. Voila! Shrimp biriyani is ready to serve with onion raita and boiled egg.