Vegetable Biryani Hyderabadi Style | Layered Mixed Vegetable Rice Recipe

Looking at the above pic are your wondering, where are the vegetable??? its all at the bottom and center of the rice. Yes... wondering if it will get burnt? not at all. This is the best possible  fragrant, vegetable biryani that I have ever had. Such a fool proof recipe, and sure a great party pleaser when you have guests who are pure vegetarians. Well also for non veg lovers to pair with a non-vegeterain side. We had guests at home last week, and this time around it was challenging for me to cook something vegeterain but yet delicious and not the usual dal,sambar, rasam. I took a little shift from the usual veg kurma, dal, rice combination to a biryani recipe famous from Andhra Pradesh. My all time favorite when it comes to Biryani is no doubt the Hyderabadi Mutton Biryani (Non-veg) and hence I did not have a second thought in doing this Vegetable Biryani as it was so similar to the biryani I love the most but the only twist of coarse is the vegetables instead of meat.

Of course we all loved it so much and even relished the left overs for dinner the same day. My guests were pleased too :-) 

Recipe Source ~ here

Serves ~ 6 

Cook & prep time ~ 1 hour

Ingredients 

For the Rice

Basmati Rice - 5 cups

Water - 10 cups (to boil)

Salt 

Cinnamon - 2 nos 1 " pieces

Green Cardamom - 4 

Cloves - 4

Star Anise - 2

Oil - 1 tsp

For the Biryani 

Oil - 3 tbsp

Ghee - 1-2 tbsp

Bay leaf - 2-3

Onion - 3 large, chopped

Bread chopped - 1/2 cup cut to squares (optional)

Shahi Jeera - 2 tsp

Green chili - 5 chopped into big chunks

Carrots - 2, chopped medium 

Cauliflower - 20 florets

Potatoes - 3 large, chopped medium 

Ginger-garlic paste - 2 tbsp

Mint leaves - 1/2 cup chopped

Curd - 1 cup

Turmeric powder - 1 tsp

Red chili powder - 2 tsp

Coriander powder - 4 tsp

Garam masala - 1 tsp

Cashew nuts - 2 tbsp (optional)

Salt as per taste

Red food color - few pinches

Saffron - a pinch

Warm milk - 1/4 cup

Method

For Rice

• Wash rice in cold running water twice and soak them in cold water for 30 mins, after which bring 10 cups of water to a boil, add salt, oil, whole spices. Add the soaked rice to this and let the cook 80%. Once done drain water using a sieve and set aside.

For Biryani

• Chop onions, vegetables and bread. In a deep and wide non stick pan heat 3 tbsp of oil and add onions to fry until golden brown. Do this is batches adding more oil if required. Next fry the bread slices too, set aside.
• In the same pan with the left over oil add ghee to it once hot add the shahi jeera, bay leaf, then add the vegetables and ginger-garlic paste. saute for 5 minutes until the raw smell goes. To this add the spices turmeric, red chili, coriander saute well and sprinkle some water if needed cover and cook for 5 more mins. 
• Check if vegetables are soft, add mint leaves and stir well, once done add curd mix well, add garam masala, salt and mix thoroughly  Take half of the vegetables to a bowl.
• Turn the heat to low. Now layer the cooked rice on the vegetables in the pan and top it with fried onions, mint leaves, cashew. Again add the remaining vegetables and layer with remaining rice. Top it with more fried onions, mint leaves and the fried bread on top.
• In the warm milk, add saffron and food color. Mix well and after 2-3 minutes pour this on top of the rice. Cover and once the steam forms.
• Keep a skillet on the stove and place the pan on top of it. This helps the rice and vegetables getting burnt at the bottom of vessel.
• Cover lid and on medium to high flame let it cook for 30 mins. Once done do not open the lid immediately wait for the flavors to form in the pan

Serve by mixing the rice and vegetables with raita & papad

Cooks Wisdom

- Adding mint leaves gives lovely fragrant biryani. You can use what ever vegetables you have at the time like peas, beans, carrot, cauliflower 

- Adding nuts and fried bread does give it extra flavor but its totally optional

- While boiling rice, never forget to add salt this is a must.