Gastronomic tours with Swiss Cheese

One of my favourite dishes as a child was Junglee Pulao. My uncle used to make it for us every now and then. The way he made it, the rice would be slightly overcooked and soggy, and I liked it that way. I wouldn't tolerate soggy rice in any other dish, but for junglee pulao, it couldn't have been any other way.

Today, waking up all groggy and hungry at lunch time, I started thinking about what to make. First thought about biryani. Then realised that I was way too hungry to wait till it was done. Decided to go the shortcut and try the famous junglee pulao. I used mushrooms and potatoes, but you can also use mutton and other vegetables. Stay away from sweet vegetables though, because they add weirdness to the taste.

Ingredients (serves one):

• 2 tsp jeera powder
• 1 tsp coriander powder
• 1/2 tsp haldi powder
• 1 tsp chilli powder
• 1/2 tsp garam masala
• 2 tsp salt
• pepper optional, to taste (I didn't include any)
• 250gm curd
• 1 cup rice, washed
• 2 cups water
• 2 cloves
• 2 cardamoms
• 1 packet button mushrooms chopped up
• 2 large potatoes cut into 6 pieces each
• 1.5 tbsp sunflower oil

Method:

1. Heat the oil in a pressure cooker
2. Add the chilli powder, jeera powder, haldi powder and coriander powder
3. At the same time, boil the water in a saucepan and add the salt to it
4. Once the masalas have fried and you can really smell it, add the mushrooms and potatoes
5. Mix it around a bit until the water from the mushrooms comes out and they start cooking in it
6. Add the rice
7. Add boiling water
8. Mix and allow to boil for a bit
9. Add curd and garam masala
10. Close the pressure cooker and leave it on high flame for one whistle and then 2-3 minutes on medium flame.

Once all steam has escaped (you may need to let some of it out if you're ready to eat), open the cooker and serve.

Other variations include using mutton instead of mushrooms. In that case, you need to fry the mutton for a little longer before you add the potatoes, and leave the pressure on for 2 whistles, You may also want to fry onions and tomatoes and ginger-garlic paste with the meat/mushrooms. Experiment with different combinations for different flavours.

You can get interesting flavours by adding various kinds of nuts. My favourite would be pine seed, slightly roasted.

If you want it more spicy, add pepper.

Try it and let me know how you like it.

This has been a long time coming. It's one of those dishes that one doesn't find in recipe books. It just happens when you're on a restricted diet, but still crave for good food.

I started with the basics for mutton biryani, but used soya nuggets instead of meat. The result was very tasty.

Ingredients:

• Basmati Rice
• Soya Nuggets

How much of the above you need depends on how many people you're going to serve. The rest of my recipe will assume 3 cups of rice and 400gm soya nuggets.

• 2 tsp chilli powder
• 2 tsp jeera (cumin) powder
• 2 tsp garam masala
• 1 tsp turmeric powder
• 5 tsp coriander powder
• 4 ripe tomatoes diced
• 1 or 2 onions cut into small pieces
• 2 tbsp ginger-garlic paste (make your own for best effect)
• 2 chopped up green chillies (optional, use if you want it spicy)
• 1/2 cup of curd
• 1 bunch coriander leaves, chopped up
• 1 bunch mint leaves, chopped up
• 3 cardamom pods
• 2 cinnamon sticks
• 1 tbsp sunflower oil
• some raisins
• some almonds
• salt to taste

Procedure:

Now, you can do four things in parallel, but make sure that you're done with the nuggets and rice before you actually need each of these.

1. Cook the rice till it's about three quarter ready. Cook it with the cinnamon and cardamom, some salt, and a sprinkling of mint, but no oil.
2. Prepare the nuggets for cooking. This involves boiling them for 10 minutes, then squeezing out, rinsing in cold water and squeezing out again.
3. boil the almonds to remove the skins and cut into slices.
4. Start cooking the masalas. This is the elaborate step.

1. Heat a pan till it is of suitable temperature for oil (ie, fling a drop of water at it and it should sizzle off immediately)
2. pour the oil in, and heat it for a couple of seconds.
3. Add the onions, and fry till light brown
4. Add the ginger-garlic paste and fry for 2 minutes
5. Add in the chilli powder, coriander powder, turmeric powder and jeera powder and chillies. fry for about 30 seconds, and add in the salt.
6. Add the diced tomatoes, and stir fry the whole thing for 3 minutes

I hope your soya nuggets are ready at this point, because you need them now.

7. Add in the soya nuggets and mix well. It will start to get really dry, but don't panic. Let it simmer for a minute or so.
8. Add in the curd, garam masala, chopped up coriander and chopped up mint (you may want to save a little mint and coriander for the raita).
9. Mix well. The curd should make the whole thing watery again.

Ok, the biryani curry is ready, and I hope your rice is too, because this is where you need it.

10. Take a baking dish, or a large vessel that can be sealed.
11. Put a layer of rice at the bottom, then a layer of soya nuggets, then another layer of rice.

You can carry on like this as long as you have enough matter to layer, just make sure the top most layer is rice and sufficiently thick. I've found that adding a layer of boiled potatoes (with or without their jackets) also helps. You can deep fry the potatoes if you like it better that way, but do it in really really hot oil.

12. Add the raisins and almonds on the top (you may want to stir fry them first, but I like to stay off frying as much as possible).
13. seal the dish and pop it into the oven at a very high temperature (I used 250°) for about 15 to 20 minutes.

Now, I used a handi, and I sealed it with wheat dough. You know that it's done when your dough starts to burn. You can also eat the dough later. Kids love it :)

Break open the seal and smell your biryani.

Now for the raita. I normally make a simple tomato-cucumber raita with curd and salt. This time I decided to experiment a bit, and added a sprinkling of mint and coriander. The result was amazing, and my raita was a hit with all those who tried it. Just mix everything together in a bowl, and refrigerate.

Serve the biryani hot and raita cold.

Is there any place in bangalore where I can get good non-veg food? Kheema Paav and stuf like that.

Went to Pizza Fort the other day, and ordered a fried chicken meal. Tip - don't have the chicken there. If it had any taste it would have been overpriced, but it didn't, so let's not even talk about the price.

Saturday's lunch was at this place at Brigade road called Kohinoor. I had veg kofta and Kerala paratha. Couldn't see the difference between that and other parathas. The Koftas were filling, but that's about it. Price wise, you get what you pay for. Recommendation - unless you're starving, walk on by (and if you're not on foot, well why the heck are you looking that way?)

Sunday dinner was at Hyderabadi Biryani on Richmond Road. Had Egg biryani there. Would have preferred trying Chicken or Mutton, but since I was the only person eating, I thought it would be too much. I think I should go there and try it out again. This place isn't for you if you're vegetarian, or if you're easily turned off by unhygienic looking places. I would also not recommend the water there, but YMMV.

Sometime last week, we visited a place called Santrupti or something like that. It's just off MG Road, take a left from Trinity Circle. Food was pretty good. A couple of the guys had thalis, I had a kind of Pulao, don't remember what I ordered for, but I think I got a Kashmiri pulao. Yathin had a chole batura... and the batura was huuuuge. Food was good IMO. The pulao would have fed two persons, and it was cheap. Recommended.

Swadistha is an Andhra place at Mittal Tower. Relatively cheap Andhra thali, reasonably spicy, so keep the curd rice for the end. Um, eat there, don't eat there. No loss.

Ullas - first floor, utility building, MG Road. Good south indian food, and only good food is south indian. Don't order anything north indian there. Masala dosa was good, but they're inconsistent with where they put the butter. Wada sambar was good too. Worth a try. Go there. Not too expensive. View from the window's not that great though.

The only other time I ate out was Thursday night at the office. We ordered parathas. I had two gobi (since I'd already had methi, and aloo on the two days before, and was going to have daal on the following sunday).

Umm, well, if anyone knows where I can get kheema paav, let me know.