Biriani

Birianis are wonderfully rich, fragrant and unctuous  dishes, they were often prepared for feasts and special occasions as they can take quite some time to prepare.  Birianis were cooked from Persia to Bangladesh so there is not one single definition of what is in a biriani.  All versions however feature a mixture of rice and meat, fish or vegetables cooked with spices (and often nuts) in a sealed container on a low heat.  Even though birianis can take a long time to prepare, it is worth it, our house always holds a beautiful aroma of spices for days after we cook a biriani.

This is without doubt the recipe I have cooked most from all of the old recipes I collected whilst I was at sea.  You can probably tell that by the state of the original typewritten document.

Ingredients

The ingredients are pretty straight forward, there is nothing that you shouldn't be able to find in any modern supermarket.  I find it interesting that in mid '80s England you could buy basmati rice in Woolworths in England.  I can never remember being able to buy food in a UK Woolworths but now we live in Australia, Woolworths supermarkets are one of the two leading supermarket brands.

I have transcribed the recipe and updated it slightly here, clarifying some of the ingredients and steps in the original that I didn't think were that clear.  Beyond that I have not changed anything.

Method

Soak the almonds in warm water and remove their skins.

Grind to a fine paste all the ingredients marked with a * (almonds, red chillies, garlic and ginger).

Pound all the ingredients marked with a + to a coarse powder.

Finely chop the coriander (leaves and tender part of the stems only) and the green chillies.  Slice the onions finely.

Soak the saffron in the lime or lemon juice.

Cut or joint the meat into medium sized pieces, wash and drain.

In a stainless steel or glass bowl, mix together the following:

• The meat or poultry
• The curd
• The chopped green chillies and coriander
• 1 teaspoon of salt
• Half of the ground spices
• Half of the pounded spices
• One quarter of the saffron extract

Mix all these together, cover and put aside for 3 - 4 hours (2 - 3 hours in a hot, humid climate).

Take half of the ghee and heat in a frying pan.  Add the remaining  half of the ground spices and fry well.  Add the marinated mixture of meat to this and continue stirring until well mixed and heated through.  Add sufficient water to cook well.  Simmer for about 20 minutes and remove from the heat.

Cook the rice in a rice cooker.  Add some salt to taste and a few drops of oil to separate the grains).  Avoid over cooking the rice at all costs; it should preferably be undercooked (by a few minutes) as it will cook further in the oven once mixed with the meat.

When nearly cooked, spread the rice in a large dish to let any moisture evaporate.  Take about 8 spoonfuls of the cooked rice (about 1/4) and mix it with the rice mixture.

Using the remaining half of the ghee, fry the onions until light brown and crisp.

Add the remaining pounded spices and and saffron extract to the rice and mix evenly.

Take an oven proof dish and spread alternate layers of rice, meat mixture and onions, one above the other.  Alternatively, mix everything together slowly and evenly whilst heating.  Place in an oven at a low heat for about 20 minutes.

Optionally, you can add crisp fried potato cubes and sliced boiled eggs in between the layers or on top of the biriani when serving.

You can download the original recipe here.

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My Classic Old Indian Recipes

A long time ago, I spent several years sailing around the world with a British Merchant Navy company as an Engineer Officer.  This company was old school (even in those days), some saw us as the "Rag Tag" of the British Merchant Navy but the people I worked with were some of the most amazing engineers and navigators that I have ever come across.  We sailed into places no one else sailed to, we fixed things that no one else could have fixed and had experiences that with them that I will never forget.  

As an old school merchant navy company, they operated a traditional crewing model where the officers were British and the crew were from the Indian subcontinent.  It made for a very interesting work environment both for the mix of cultures and for the food served on board.  There were two messes, an officer's mess and a crew's mess each served by different galleys with different cooks.  The officer's food varied but was quite traditional but the crew's food was amazing.  Awesome curries, dahls, breads, kedgerees, samosas, tikkas and curry puffs and if you wanted to, you could eat them for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

On my second trip to sea, which was on a old tramp ship called the MV Pikebank, I got to know the Chief Steward and over time, I got him to share with me some of his oldest and best recipes that covered a range of styles.  I have had these since 1985 and I thought it was time they were made available again before they are lost.  

I have a bunch of typewritten recipes that I will be sharing with you all over the next few months. I'll share both the original recipe and a slightly modified version which uses more recognised ingredient names and tidies up some of the recipe instructions and processes.

These are the recipes I'll be posting for your pleasure (Enjoy):

• Biriani
• Chicken Curry
• Fish Curry
• Prawn Curry
• Curry Powder
• Palin Kedgeree
• Tandoori Chicken

I hope you enjoy these as much as I have over the last 30 years.  

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Perfecting the Pizza Oven

I finished our pizza oven over two years ago now and although we have used it regularly over that time, I feel that I have really perfected how to use the oven over this summer. The learning curve is pretty steep, even as a former Englishman who swore by charcoal barbecues over gas, the art of firing a pizza oven is completely different.  For about the first year, I made the same silly mistakes.  I didn't put enough wood on to get the temperature up fast enough.  I didn't consider what the weather had been like over the previous two weeks (humid, damp?) and of course, I never had enough wood ready to go when I needed it.

We had two very public failures, both when we had guests and where I just failed to plan properly and misjudged the whole thing. Now though, I think I have perfected it.  There are a few simple things that you need to get right to get a roaring oven like this:

Weather

It might seem obvious but the weather is crucial, check the forecast, not just for when you want to fire the oven but also for the days before.  A damp oven just won't fire, it is as simple as that.  If there has been heavy rain in the week preceding, I always check to see if I need to light a smaller fire just to dry the oven out the day before we need it.  One hour spent the day before makes the difference between a fire like the one above and a damp oven that will only just about make soggy pizza.

Wood

Always have plenty of dry seasoned wood in a variety of sizes from small kindling to get the fire going, mid sized pieces to get the fire to the point where it will light the larger pieces and finally, the larger pieces that will get the oven up to the 400 degrees centigrade that makes the perfect pizza in just about 3 minutes.

Pizza Dough

Always make your own.  It is so simple that it is a no brainer.  We use a recipe that uses a 50%-50% blend of strong white bread flour and plain flour.  That seems to be the perfect mix that works from scratch in about 2 hours including rising time.

Tomato Sauce

Again, make your own, it is so simple. Core and halve your tomatoes and put them in the oven in a baking tray with a whole bulb of garlic. When you start getting white spots on the top or the side of your oven, the temperature is right to put your tomatoes in.   The garlic and the tomatoes will roast and soften beautifully and all you need to do will be squeeze the garlic cloves out into the tomatoes, add some oregano and basil and blitz in a food processor.  This freezes really well so I always make more than we need and freeze what is left over.

Oven Temperature

This is the last point but without doubt the one and only point that makes or breaks a good pizza, if you really wanted, you could buy pre-made dough or tomato sauce but if the oven is not hot enough, game over for pizzas.  

So how do you tell if your pizza oven is hot enough? It's actually quite simple and there are two test to double check.  If the roof and sides of your oven have burned white, it is hot enough but just to check, crumple a half sheet of newspaper into a ball and throw it onto the floor of the oven (away from any flames or embers).  If the newspaper self-combusts, then the oven is hot enough. 

Get these point right and you'll serve great pizzas.  If you want to learn how to build your own pizza oven then look at my series of posts from a couple of years ago.

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