Gutti Vankaya Biryani
A flavorful dum-style biryani made with stuffed brinjals, aromatic basmati rice, a freshly ground nut and spice masala, herbs, saffron, and whole spices.
Ingredients
- Oil – ⅔ cup divided
- Basmati rice – 3 cups
- Onion – 1 ½ thin sliced
- Green chilli – 3
- Eggplant – 5 large
- Curd – 1 cup
- Salt – to taste
- Bay leaves – 4
- Cinnamon stick – 2
- Black cardamom – 1
- Cloves – 8
- Star anise – 3
- Cumin – 1 tsp
- Fennel seeds – 1 tsp
- Cardamom – 6
- Mace – 1
- Ghee – 2 tbsp
- Milk – ¼ cup
- Saffron – pinch
- Mint – 1 bunch
- Cilantro – 1 bunch
To Grind
- Peanut – ½ cup
- Cashews – 10
- Sesame seed – 1 tbsp
- Desiccated coconut – ½ cup
- Coriander seeds – 1 tbsp
- Onion – ½ roughly chopped
- Ginger garlic paste – 1 ½ tbsp
- Kashmiri Red chilli powder – 2 tsp
- Coriander powder – 2 tsp
- Garam masala – 1 tsp
- Turmeric – ½ tsp
- Cumin powder
Instructions
- Wash and soak the rice for 30 minutes.
- Take a pan and dry roast peanuts, cashews, coriander seeds, desiccated coconut and sesame seeds until golden brown. Let them cool down to room temperature.
- Now transfer the dry roasted ingredients to the mixie jar along with other ingredients listed in “To grind” and grind them into coarse paste by adding little amount of water.
- Now cut the eggplants as shown in the picture and stuff them with the ground paste and set aside until needed.
- To the remaining ground paste add little more water and grind into smooth paste. Now take a clean bowl mix the ground smooth paste and curd, mix well until combined and set aside.
- Now heat a pan with ¼ cup of oil and fry the onion until golden brown. Drain them from oil and set aside.
- Now to the remaining oil add little more extra oil and fry the stuffed eggplants in medium flame until the eggplants turn brown or cooked by turning from all around carefully. Once done remove them from oil and set aside.
- Bring a pot of water to boil, add the remaining spices 2 bay leaves, 1 cinnamon stick, 1 black cardamom, 4 cloves, 3 cardamom along with 1 tsp of oil to avoid rice sticking to one other and salt. Add the washed and drained rice to the boiling water and cook the rice until 75% done. Once done drain and keep the cooked rice aside.
- Now heat clean pan with remaining oil add the remaining items 2 bay leaves, 1 cinnamon stick, 3 star anise, 3 cardamom, 4 cloves, 1 mace along with fennel seeds and cumin, and once splutter add the green chillis and few mint leaves saute.
- Now add the curd and paste mixture along with salt, mix well until combined, add ½ cup water, mix well.
- Once the mixture starts to boil add the stuffed eggplants, turn the flame to low-medium, cover and cook
- Cook until the mixture starts to thicken, ooze the oil. Turn off the flame and keep aside.
- Take the warm milk, add the saffron, mix well and keep aside.
- Now assembling for dum. Take a biryani pot or wide and tall pan. Place some of the prepared eggplant gravy along with eggplants as the base and portion of fried onion. Top it with a portion of cooked rice.
- Above that sprinkle some fried onion, some ghee, saffron milk, some mint and cilantro. As shown in the pic.
- Again repeat the same process for another two times to get the layers. Now cover the pot and seal tight.
- I used biryani pot. I just kept the weight over to lock the lid. If not, seal the sides of the pot with aluminum foil or dough. Cook the biryani dum for 20 minutes in low flame.
- Once done, make sure not to break the rice strands. Enjoy hot with chips and raita
Notes | FAQ
- If you do not use a heavy bottom pot, place a tawa and once the tawa is hot enough place the biryani pot over it and turn the flame to low and cook for 20 minutes.
- Adjust the Kashmiri red chilli powder and green chilli according to your preferred spice level.
- As we always prefer mild spice for kids, I used with the listed quantity.
Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!