Culinary Chronicles
By Yasmin Rahul Bakshi
“Mom, why do people eat karhi on Baisakhi?” My not so little Cub asked.
“Colour yellow marks happiness and is symbolic to the golden fields of wheat. It’s for prosperity and abundance.” I replied.
She thought for a while and did not seem too pleased with the idea of the modest gram flour and buttermilk curry.
“You shall steam rice with karhi, so why don’t you just rustle up some biryani and add saffron to mark the occasion with its amber hues,” she said with a twinkle in her eyes.
I took her suggestion, for festivals are for the happiness of the family. “Tomorrow, my mother is cooking biryani and she will send it for you too…” I eavesdropped her conversation with someone over the phone.
On questioning, she replied, “You wouldn’t prepare less, so I told a few friends of mine that I would be getting biryani for them on the 14th.”
Cub has had this confidence since she was a little girl. She was about two and a half years old when she showed her trust for the first time to me while we resided in Africa.
As a routine her evenings were spent in the park with the children of the other officials posted in the United Nations. One evening on returning, she handed over a paper to me scribbled with some alphabets and digits.
“These are the phone numbers of my park friends, please call their parents to invite my playmates for a party on Saturday,” Cub insisted, leaving me astonished. She had carried a sheet of paper and a pencil while going to the play area without my awareness.
At that age she could not write but the grey matter was strong enough to ask each child to pen down his or her details.
All her friends arrived for the petit soirée that had a scrumptious spread of her demand.
Perhaps her unwavering faith in Tiger and I was cherished then and now. An unshakeable reliance!
Two versions of the rice dish were prepared. Eight and a half kilos of chicken biryani and two kilograms of kathal biryani. Whisked away to her and our friends.
Ingredients:
- Long grain basmati rice – 700 gms
- Chicken – 1 kg biryani cut / Kathal – 1 kg 3 inch pieces
- Onion – 300 gms julienned
- Tomato – 200 gms julienned
- Thick curd – 100 gms (not sour)
- Salt – as per taste
- Garam masala powder – 1 tsp
- Red chili powder
- Turmeric – ¼ tsp
- Green cardamom – 6
- Black cardamom – 3
- Bay leaves – 2
- Ginger garlic paste – 4 tbsp
- Cinnamon stick – 3 inch
- Cloves – 12
- Cooking oil – 1 cup
- Coriander leaves – 1/2 cup chopped
- Mint leaves – 1/2 cup chopped
- Green chillies – 6
- Saffron – 2-3 pinch
- Milk – 100 gm
Method:
- Wash the chicken and marinate with 4 Tbsp ginger garlic paste, 100 gms of curd, 2 tsp oil and 2 pinch of salt. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours. If using kathal, deep fry the kathal pieces and marinate the same way.
- Wash the rice and soak it for 45 minutes.
- Meanwhile, heat the oil in a pan and fry the onions until crisp and golden brown.
- Push the fried onions on a side in the pan and add all the whole spices in the oil and let them crackle.
- Now add the chicken/ kathal to the fried onions, toss for 3 minutes on full flame.
- Add the salt, red chili powder and garam masala powder. Mix well.
- Add 3 cups of water and cook on low flame until chicken / kathal starts getting tender.
- Add the tomatoes and cook on high flame until the oil starts surfacing. Switch off the flame.
- In a pot boil 3 litres of water with 2 Tbsp of salt and 1 Tbsp of oil. Add the soaked rice and cook until it is 90% done.
- Strain out the water. Keep the rice aside.
- Warm up the milk and soak the saffron in it.
- In a pot, spread some boiled rice, sprinkle some saffron milk, spread some chicken curry / kathal curry on top, sprinkle some mint and coriander leaves.
- Repeat the above step 3 or 4 times until the rice and chicken curry finish off.
- Place the green chilies on top.
- Cover the pot with a lid, seal the edges with wheat dough or place something heavy on the lid to keep it tight.
- Switch on the flame and cook on low heat for 15 minutes.
- Once done, tenderly mix it.
- Serve hot.
(Yasmin Rahul Bakshi is an accomplished senior consultant Chef and a food historian. A widely travelled Army wife from the Mussoorie hills with exposure to international cuisines & preserving recipes with the medium of food photography and digital content creation in the form of stories.)
