Mutton biryani 

One of baba’s friends had come visiting us when we were Jabalpur. Maa had to cook up a lunch quickly and aunty had taught maa a “short-cut” mutton biryani. This is more like a mutton pulao, I think.  Maa had learnt this quite well and she used to make this quite often as my sister and I loved this and so did our friends who visited us – this was a common non-veg items at home for any birthday party. 

Mutton – ½ kg- cleaned, and kept aside 

Rice – ½ kg (2 cups), clean with water well, remove the water and spread in a large plate to dry.  

Potatoes – 3 to 4 large, cut in half. Mix a little bit with salt. Fry in oil and fry in oil lightly (should not become brown. Remove from oil as the potatoes change colour and become lighter) 

Onion – 2 large – sliced finely 

Ginger – 1 inch, chopped finely 

Garlic – 6-7 pieces 

Peppercorns – 6-7 

Green chillies – 4-5, sliced in half 

Elaichi – 4 

Laung – 1 

Cinnamon – 1-inch pieces, broken in 2-4 pcs 

Salt to taste 

Vinegar – 1 tpsp 

Ghee – 4 tpsp (can mix half ghee and oil, if you don’t want to use only ghee) 

Mettha attar – 5-6 drops or kewra water – 1 tbsp 

Procedure 

Pressure cook the meat with water (4 cups) with salt and vinegar for 7-9 minutes. Separate the meat from the stock. Keep both.  

Take ghee in a large deep and thick bottomed vessel. When it heats up add the pepper corn, elaichi, laung, cinnamon and green chillies. As it starts spluttering, add the onion, ginger and garlic. Fry till the onion turn pink (it should not burn as then it spoils the flavour). Add the boiled mutton (without water) and fry for a few minutes. Add the rice and fry again for a few minutes. Stir constantly so that it does not stick to the pan. Add the potatoes and stir again. Now add 3.5 cups of stock to the rice and add the mettha attar or kewra water. Cover with a thick lid, seal the side with atta or put some heavy weight on top of the lid. Cook this on low flame for 20 minutes 

Note: If you fear that the bottom is not too thick and the rice can burn at the bottom, then, after 10 minutes of adding the water, put a tawa on the gas and once it heats up, put the vessel containing the biryani on top of this. Let it remain like this for 15 minutes. Remove from fire, uncover, add a tsp of ghee and serve immediately with onion raita. 

Onion Raita 

Maa always made the mutton biryani with this onion raita. And if the mood and weather was good, then there was devilled eggs (egg devil, we called them) too.

Curd – one cup (use hung curd if possible). Beat till smooth 

Salt to taste 

Red chilli powder – ½ tea sp 

Onion – 2 medium sized, thinly sliced.  

One tsp – white oil 

Mustard seeds – ½ tsp 

Procedure 

Mix the onion with the curd along with salt and red chilli powder. Heat the oil and season with mustard seeds. Once it starts spluttering, put this on the curd mixture and serve immediately. Goes well with any biryani