Method:

Wash basmati rice cleanly at least for 4 to 5 times. Soaked for 20 minutes. Keep aside.

Take all the vegetables in a mixing bowl for marination. Add ginger garlic paste, curd, red chili powder, turmeric, cumin coriander powder, oil and salt. Mix all the vegetables in to this marination. ½ hour is enough for marinating the veggies.

For fried onions. Chop 2 onions in a long shape. Then fry in oil till brown and crisp. The fried onion are ready for biryani.  Also fry the cashew in the oil for garnishing. Keep aside.

Heat a big pot on medium flame for making biryani. Add 3 to 4 tablespoons of oil. Once oil is heated add 1 teaspoon of cumin. After cumin flutters add entire green chilies and chopped onions. Fry the onions for few minutes then, add chopped tomatoes. Cook the tomatoes till soft. Now add some ginger garlic paste. Fry till raw smell go off. Now time to add all spices one by one. Put a flame slow. Add red chili powder, biryani masala, Turmeric and salt. Add marinated veggies. Mix well with onion and tomatoes mixture. Add ½ glass of water.

Mix well. Keep a lid on pot for 5 minutes.  

On the other hand, heat another pot with water on a high flame. The water level should be ¾th of the pot. For seasoning the water. Add cardamom, cinnamon, cumin, black paper, cloves, bay leaves and oil. Allow to boil.

Till then, check the vegetable mixture. After 5 minutes of time. Check the veggies. When it cooked half. Turn off the flame.

 Now make the further process, without the flame.

Add some chopped coriander and some fried onions into this mixture. Mix the vegetable mixture once. Check the salt. If required adjust the salt as per the taste.

Now other hand, once water starts boiling add 2 to 3 teaspoon of salt into the water. Mix it well with the spoon. You may check the taste of salt. The taste of water should be little bit salty. Here the measuring of salt level is very important because, we seasoning this water for boil the rice.

So, whatever amount of salt we using that should absorb into the rice. Make sure that the taste of water is little bit salty. Don’t use much salt.

When water start’s boiling, turn the stove on a medium flame.

Now, remove the water from the soak rice. Add soaked rice into the boiled water. Again make a high flame. Mix once with spatula. Allow to cook. Once rice cooked 70%. Take some portion of rice. (For this process, you can use skimmer. With the help of skimmer, you can easily take the rice from the boil water) and place the rice on the vegetable masala evenly.

Now add some fried onions and chopped coriander on that rice. Again take some portion of boiled rice and place on the top of fried onions and chopped coriander.

Now drain the boiled water in another pot. And place remaining 90 % cooked rice on the top layer of the biryani. Keep the boiled water aside. Don’t waste the boiled water.

Now for finishing, garnish the top level of rice with chopped coriander, fried onions and cashew. Pour 2 tablespoon of clarified butter on the top. Spread it evenly.

Now important step:

Take one cup of remaining boiled water. And pour every where on the biryani. Why we using this method. Because it helps to cook the half cook rice which is there in the first layer of biryani.

Now cover the pot with the lid. Keep the pot on a high flame.

Keep in High flame for 5 minutes.

Then, keep the gas on slow flame for another 10 minutes.

After that, keep the pot on pre heated tawa for another 10 minutes on a slow flame.

Total time is 25 to 30 minutes for steam this biryani.

After 25 minutes, switch off the flame. Keep for rest at least for 5 minutes.

Remove the lid. Serve the biryani hot with salad or cucumber tomatoes raita.

Thank you.

Have a great day.

Be happy and healthy.