egg biryani

To go with the indian spiced marinated roasted chicken I wanted to make a biryani which is an Indian rice dish.  Rice has never been a favourite of mine, but cooking it this way gives it some flavour and can actually be a main dish not just a side dish. I used several different recipes as an inspiration for this.

This made enough to feed 12 as a side dish or 6 as a one dish meal.


1 onion sliced and browned in oil until crisp
1 tablespoon of oil or ghee
1 bay leaf
5 green cardamom pods
2 black cardamom
1 broken stick of cinnamon
1 large onion chopped
2 garlic cloves grated
1" fresh ginger grated
4 medium tomatoes or equivalent cherry tomatoes chopped
1 jalapeno chili chopped
small handful of fresh mint chopped
small handful of fresh cilantro chopped
6 eggs hard boiled
1/4 cup of roasted cashew nuts
2 cups of almost cooked rice

Fry the whole spices in the oil along with the chopped onion and garlic.  When the onion is soft and just turning golden, add the tomatoes and cook down a little, then add the grated ginger and jalapeno peppers.

Stir in and cook a little longer, then add the min and cilantro

Add the hard boiled eggs sliced in half and cashew nuts stir in.

Chicken and rice

This is a dish that we had in Amazon down in Ecuador last fall, it is simple down home food and I am sure that there are versions of this all over the world.  You could use almost any vegetables and some beans could also have been added for more protein. I used the vegetables that I had on hand, but actually in a pinch you could use frozen mixed vegetables, but then you would have to add them at the end. It is really a one dish meal, and we just had a green salad to complete the meal.

This fed 5 for dinner plus two lunches during the week.

4 whole chicken legs
2 bay leaves
1 tablespoon of olive oil
1 yellow onion chopped
2 cups of rice
5 carrots chopped
5 ribs of celery chopped
1 can of corn
Small bunch of chopped parsley
1 cup of frozen peas

In a large pot place the chicken legs 2 carrots, 2 ribs of celery and 1/2 onion roughly chopped. Cover with water and add the bay leaves and salt and pepper.

Simmer for 1/2 an hour and then turn off the heat and leave to sit for 1/2 an hour with the lid on.

The chicken should be falling off the bone, and you have a delicious rich chicken stock.  Remove the chicken and vegetables and simmer the stock until you have 4 cups.  Discard the vegetables and shred the chicken and set aside Refrigerate if you are not going to make the dish right away.

vegetable biryani

I have always loved Indian food, but I have come to biryani's late in life.  I am not sure if I never had them when I was younger, or if I never had a good one.  A friend used to own a small Indian restaurant here in Vancouver and biryani was the special one day, so I decided to try it.  It was a revelation, a soft fluffy rice studded with intensely flavoured morsels including nuts and dried fruit. Since then I often order it when going to an Indian restaurant and have been experimenting with making it myself.

This Sunday evening a neighbourhood friend invited us over, along with a few others, for a Texas hold em game and potluck dinner.  So I decided to make a vegetarian biryani to take along as I know they like  Indian food and I thought it would travel well.  I found the basis for this recipe at vegrecipesofindia.com
But I simplified it a little and had to substitute a couple of items.

First partialy cook the rice.


1 and half cup basmati rice
2 green cardamoms
2 cloves
1 small sliver of cinnamon
1 bay leaf
3 cups water
salt

All the recipes that I found for biryani say to rinse and soak the rice, I assume to remove a lot of the starch, so I rinsed the rice in a colander then soaked in a bowl of cold water for 1/2 an hour, drained it and put in to a pot with the remaining ingredients.

Cook the rice with the lid on until all the water is absorbed and it still a little el dente, about 15 minutes then fluff with a fork and set aside with the lid on.

1/2 medium sized cauliflower, florets removed

1 medium sized carrot, diced

1 medium sized potato, cubed

1 cup of chopped greeen beans

1  onion, finely sliced

1 green chili, chopped

2 tbsp julienned ginger

1 tbsp chopped garlic

2 green cardamom

2 black cardamoms

2 cloves

small piece of cinnamon 

1/2 cup of plain yogurt

1/4 tsp turmeric powder

1/2 tsp red chili powder/cayenne pepper

2 tbsp cashewnuts or whole almonds

1 tbsp sultanas/raisins/dates

3 tbsp olive oil

Whole spices in the vegetable mixture

Rice and beans

This weekend was my birthday weekend and I spent it with 10 girl friends at a beautiful house up on the sunshine coast. As you can imagine there was a lot of talking and laughing, which is pretty much how we spent our time along with playing quiddler, walking, watching movies, dancing and of course the odd glass of wine was drunk. I also got to indulge my love for cooking and eating.

The first night I made the Cuban style pork roast but this time we used a butt roast and cooked it for about 3 hours.  I had a vision of rice and beans to go with it, so this is what I threw together.

2 tablespoons of olive oil
2 cups of rice
1 bunch of green onion chopped
1 garlic clove thinly sliced
1 yellow (or orange or red or green) bell pepper chopped
2 stalks of celery chopped
1 tablespoon of cumin
1 teaspoon of hot smoked paprika
2 1/2 cups of chicken stock
1 can of drained red beans
Handful of chopped cilantro.