Summer Biryani Challenge

It's summer now, which means hot eats and DELICIOUS cooking!  Sure, I cook during the rest of the year like most normal people, but to really take the time to learn and experience the joys of cooking can be a great challenge with work stresses...  This summer vacation, my goal is to perfect a popular Indian/Pakistani food called "biryani," a challenging basmati rice dish.  While many times the recipe calls for meat, I will be attempting to make a great vegetable biryani instead to fit the current Chi-lifestyle.

Each time I make biryani, I will review the success here on this blog, while also reviewing the biryani brand of spices or recipe in the process.  So far I have made biryani the following three times:

Biryani #1:  The first time, I decided to start simple.  Found at Whole Foods, Mr. Kook's Biryani Sauce seemed too good to be true.  Cook your rice, boil your vegetables, and serve with rice.  Chi said, "this could be the ultimate biryani hack!"  Riiight...  A great vegetable meal, no doubt, with plenty of Indian spices... but biryani?  No.  I suppose any biryani recipe that says "just pour, cook, and enjoy," is headed for trouble.  Biryani isn't easy and there isn't an easy way to make it instantly.  Sorry, no picture.  I forgot to take one!

Biryani #2:  I recently downloaded the Whole Foods application on my iPad and was pleasantly surprised to see a recipe for "Vegetable Biryani w/Cashews."  The recipe included a ton of great vegetables such as red onion, ginger, cauliflower, carrots, green beans, tomatoes, peas, as well as other great ingredients like garlic, yogurt, curry powder, and cashews.  It fit right in with my summer challenge, so I decided to give it a try.  I'd read that biryani could be baked, so this was a good first attempt at baking it.  However... it should have been somewhat of a red flag that I was getting this recipe from Whole Foods... a not-Pakistani-or-Indian grocery mart.  Like Biryani #1, it tasted fresh and delicious, but it wasn't real biryani.  *Cry*

Biryani #3:  After much discouragement with instant biryani "miracle" sauce and western-twist biryani, I decided to quit easy instructions and make biryani the way that I've learned to make biryani.  Rasoi Magic provided the spices and I decided the ingredients.  I don't recommend following the instructions provided by Rasoi Magic...  If I had cooked my vegetables for 7 minutes, we'd have been eating rocks!  Unfortunately, I was running out of vegetables, so I made due with potatoes, onions, tomatoes, carrots, and green beans.  Rather than cook the vegetables for 7 minutes, I upped that to about 30 minutes.  I also took the advice of my new friend, Vah Reh Vah, and watched the rice carefully cooking in my pot.  I'd never made rice without my precious rice cooker...  It was quite a challenge to keep the rice from becoming mushy and not cooking it through.  That is the ultimate challenge of biryani -- making perfect rice.  In my opinion, it wasn't perfect, but Chi thought it passed the biryani taste test as good rice.  It definitely tasted like biryani this time.  The spice pack from Rasoi Magic was good and we added more salt in the end.  I also need to work on dying my rice less evenly...