Friday night is curry night and this time I thought I’d give the biryani a try. Our usual takeaway curry order is Veg Biryani with Vindaloo sauce, Aloo Brinjal and an Aloo Saag. But we’ve moved away from the takeaway side of things now, just wasn’t enjoying it quite as much as we used to.

I’ve never made a biryani before, so this is quite a basic recipe just to test the water, so to speak. I’m going to modify it for next time adding in some chopped carrots, roasted aubergine, roasted cauliflower and some cubed potato pieces, then I’ll be closer to my takeaway version.

This went pretty well for my first attempt, perhaps a little too hot (those chillis are kick ass hot) but you can play around with your spice mix until you’re happy with the heat.

Mushroom Biryani with Hot Curry Sauce (HOT)

Serves 2

 

Ingredients

 

1 large tomato

2 onions

4 garlic cloves

1 inch piece of ginger

4 hot chilies

Handful of coriander leaves

1 tablespoon garam masala

2 teaspoon hot curry power

 

1 tbsp olive oil

8 medium sized button mushrooms thinly sliced

1 large green bell pepper, chopped

 

Spice Mix:

1 teaspoon Cumin

½ teaspoon ground ginger

1 teaspoon chilli

1 teaspoon turmeric

½ teaspoon black pepper

Pinch of ground cloves

 

1 cup Brown Rice

Juice of ½ lemon

 

For the Hot Curry Sauce

 

¼ of the tomato, ginger, chilli, garlic, onion mix from above

1 large tomato finely chopped

1 tablespoon black mustard seeds

Juice of ½ lemon

1 cup of vegan vegetable stock

1 tsp corn starch mixed with 1 tbsp water

Handful of frozen peas

1 teaspoon hot curry powder

 

Method

 

1.  Take the first 8 ingredients and blitz with a hand blender or put through your food processor

2. Heat the oil a deep pan over a medium heat

3. Add the ¾ of the mixture from the food processor (reserve the other ¼ for the madras style sauce) and cook for a 5 minutes until it thickens up and starts to dry out

4. Add the chopped mushrooms and green bell pepper and spice mix and coat the mushrooms thoroughly

5. Add the brown rice (dry) and coat with the spices, then add 2 cups of boiling water into the pan, stir through and leave until rice is cooked and the mixture is starting to dry out slightly. Stir only a few times to make sure it doesn’t stick to the pan, add the fresh lemon juice and stir through.

6. For the Hot Curry sauce, pop the onion mix (from biryani recipe) mustard seeds and curry powder in a small pan and cook for 5 minutes, then add the remaining ingredients (except the corn startch – only use this if you want to thicken up your sauce) and cook for 10 minutes, should be ready the same time as your biryani.