Out Of The Garden

lamb biryani ~ out of the box

Hello friends! This is part of July Week 3 Cooking From Cookbook Challenge Group.

I hope you won’t think I am completely crazy when I tell you that I couldn’t settle on a recipe from a cookbook this weekend! But I promise I didn’t resort to an online search 🙂

It’s garden time in the north woods, and around here that means eating from the fridge and freezer to make room for all the good things to come. I found a pound of frozen lamb and made up my mind to use it in a biryani. After scouring my cookbooks (and I did search some good ones, including The Bombay Palace Cookbook by Stendahl and A Taste of India by Madhur Jaffrey), I found myself too lazy to start toasting and grinding. I had my lamb, but needed inspiration. I found it in a little pink box, which has lived in a cupboard affectionately named “little India” for over five years now — ever since I moved to the north woods of Michigan.

leaning apple tree and euonymus bushes in the front yard

Over the years I have learned the difference between freshly made spice mixes and the packaged variety. I am not ashamed, however, to say I use packaged masalas — especially when I’m cooking something in a hurry for work lunch, etc… or when I am plain lazy. Searching in little India, I came across a little pink box of MDH Bombay Biryani Masala. Magic!

the box from which I cooked!

Now I do use packaged mixes from time to time, but I do not often follow the recipes on the boxes. Why not use the recipe on the back of this? It was perfect. All the whole masalas were in the pouch along with the ground spices. I dug out a pair of reading glasses (yep, getting older!) and got to work. I switched up a few things here and there but basically followed the box recipe, which I give below, along with the changes I made. It came out great, I must admit!

Bombay Biryani a la MDH

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Wash and soak 1 lb basmati rice in 2x [its volume of] water for 20 minutes. (I had only 9 oz and used that).

Marinate 1 lb meat or chicken on the bone (I had boneless lamb), cut in cubes, in a mixture of ginger paste, garlic paste, salt, yogurt, and lemon juice (no measurements are given for this! I used about a cup of yogurt, 1 TB ginger paste, 1 tsp garlic paste, 1 TB lemon juice and very little salt –  seeing that’s the first ingredient of the packaged masala!).

Chop 6 oz (I used 8 oz) onions and 8 oz (I used 12 oz) potatoes into half inch dice. Fry in 4 oz vegetable oil (this was way too much for me so I used 1 oz ghee and 1 oz grapeseed oil, and that was a luxury!) until onions are brown and potatoes are cooked. Add 7 oz (I used 9 oz) chopped tomatoes and one pack of MDH Bombay Biryani Masala; mix well until tomatoes are soft. Add the meat and 3 c water; cover and simmer until meat is tender and liquid has mostly cooked down. Salt to taste.

Boil the soaked rice until half the water remains. In a large [dutch oven], layer the rice with the meat mixture. Add remaining water and steam until rice is fully cooked. Serve with yogurt or raita.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The MDH Bombay Biryani Masala contains: salt, coriander, dried plum, red chili, fennel, mango, cassia, musk melon, turmeric, cumin, cloves, cardamom amomum seeds, garlic, black pepper, green cardomom, nutmeg, and mace.

I added: 1 small eggplant, cut into cubes, and 1 c frozen carrots

This was SUPER spicy and excellent actually, with the biggest black cardamoms I’ve ever seen included in the mix.

the contents of the spice pouch from MDH Bombay Biryani Masala

I am sure biryani is not a new process but my cooking photos are below — I added cashews and golden sultanas poached in ghee at the end — it was Saturday night after all!

tomatoes and masala added to the browned onions, potatoes, carrots and eggplant

lamb is added, after marinating in yogurt, ginger and garlic

mixed well and ready to cook

the biryani base is now cooked down and super-spicy!

layered with rice and ready to finish

garnished with golden sultanas and cashews fried in ghee

it’s done! gently turning it over

So there you have it — my “out of the box” lamb biryani. I made raita with — what else — some MDH raita masala (and one of the first little cukes from the garden).  I took a few pics but it was missing something — finally I figured it out. The pickle!

lamb biryani with cucumber raita and mango pickle

Incidentally — the history of MDH spices (my favorite packaged mixes with the exception of sambhar podi, for which I turn to Sakthi) is very interesting and also inspiring. You can read about Mahashaya Dhampal, founder of the modern-day company, here; it is worth a look 🙂

And now, it’s time to start sifting through the cookbooks for next weekend. Happy Sunday!

bush pickles — cucumber for raita came from these!