Mutton Biriyani

Mutton biriyani

Biriyani or biryani, an all-in-one meal, is usually made on special occasions in Kerala. Feeding a large gathering is made easier with a biriyani on the menu. Chicken or mutton are the usual favourites. Here, I have done a mutton biriyani. For chicken biryani, all you do is substitute the mutton with chicken in this method.

Serves : 8 to 10 persons
Marination time : 2 hrs to about 12 hrs in the refrigerator
Cooking time and preparation time (excluding marination time): 2 hrs

The ingredients and methods to prepare or cook them are given in order of the procedure.

Ingredients and method

A.

• Mutton pieces - 1 1/2 kg (3.3 lbs)
• Yoghurt - 2 cups
• Garam masala powder - 1 tsp
• Black pepper powder- 1 tsp
• Red chilli powder - 1 tsp
• Turmeric powder - 1 tsp
• Salt - 1 teaspoon

Step 1. Wash the mutton pieces well and drain in a colander. Mix all the items very well by hand (kneading the mutton pieces a bit) and keep in a covered steel or glass vessel. Marinate in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours and less than 12 hours.

B.

• Onions (sliced long) - 4 cups
• Vegetable oil for deep frying - 2 to 3 cups

Step 2. Heat the oil in a wok and fry the sliced onions in batches (on medium flame). The fried onions should only be a golden brown. Drain on kitchen paper. Reserve the oil in pan. (Fried onions can be done earlier and stored in the refrigerator too. This also keeps well for a few days in the freezer.)

C.

• Onions chopped - 2 1/2 cups
• Garlic - 50 gms
• Ginger - 50 gms
• Green chillies - 6
• Coriander or "dhania" leaves(cleaned, washed and chopped) - 1 1/2 cups

Step 3. Clean and chop all the items. Grind this with some water to get a smooth green paste.

D.

• Butter - 50gms
• Green cardamom - 6
• Cloves - 6
• Cinnamon - 1 inch piece
• Whole black pepper - 15
• Fennel seeds - 1 tsp heaped
• Mint leaves - 10

Step 4. In a thick bottomed large vessel, melt the butter. Add 4 tblsp of oil (the oil used for frying onions) and add all the dry, whole spices. Let these splutter. Add the green paste and fry till it turns brown. Scrape and stir often. Use some more oil from the frying pan if the paste sticks too much to the vessel bottom. Step 5.: When the paste is brown, add all the marinated meat and yoghurt. Stir well. Cover, bring to a rolling boil and then let it simmer for 45 minutes or till the meat is tender. Adjust the salt. Add the mint leaves after cooking is done. Cover the cooking pot. (I cook this in a heavy bottomed vessel as the flavour and texture of the meat is much better than if I used a pressure cooker.)

E.

• "Basmati" rice - 1 kg (2.2 lbs)
• Bay leaves - 4
• Cloves - 2
• Caraway or "shahjeera" - 1/2 tsp
• Cinnamon - 1/2 inch piece
• Salt - 2 tsp
• Water - 10 to 12 cups

Step 6. In a large vessel bring the water, spices and salt to a boil. Meanwhile pick and wash the basmati rice till the water runs clear. When the spiced water has begun boiling, add the rice and cook. The rice should be only half done. (The rice should mostly be opaque white in colour.) Quickly drain the rice in a colander. Spread out the drained rice on a large platter to cool. Pick and discard the bay leaves.

F.

• Saffron strands - 1 pinch
• Boiling milk - 4 tblsp

Step 7. Place saffron strands in a cup. Add boiling milk. Keep aside.

G.

• Juice of limes - 3 tblsp
• Handful of chopped "dhania" leaves

Step 8. Now to assemble the biryani. Check rice and mutton korma for seasoning. Next, keep the rice, the fried onions, the saffron milk, the mutton korma, the lime juice and the dhania leaves in an assembly-line formation. (This makes things easy.) In a thick bottomed vessel which can hold all of these things, we shall layer the biriyani. The first layer is of some rice, and then a couple of ladlesful of mutton with its gravy. Spread them well. Sprinkle some fried onions, some drops of saffron milk, some "dhania" leaves and a few drops of lime juice. Continue layering thus, till all the rice and mutton korma are used up. Take a wooden spoon and with its long stick end only, give the layered biriyani a light stir, without breaking any rice grains. Smoothen and press down the top of the biriyani rather firmly. Sprinkle the rest of the fried onions, saffron milk, "dhania" leaves and lime juice on top in a decorative manner. Cover with a tight lid and place the vessel on very low heat to "dum" cook the biryani. If possible a weight can be placed on top of the vessel to minimize steam escape. Place the vessel on a griddle (tawa) so that the biryani gets evenly heated and does not stick to the bottom of the vessel. After about half an hour, open the vessel carefully and check to see if the rice is fully cooked. (The rice looks curled when its well done.) If there are lots of water droplets on the inner side of the lid, you can be sure that the biryani is done. Else cover up again and let it "dum" cook for 10 to 15 minutes more.

H.

• Kewra essence - 1tsp (optional)
• Rose essence - 1 tsp (optional)
• Hard boiled egg - 1 per person (optional)
• Fried cashew nuts and raisins for garnish (optional)

Step 9. If you like the extra flavours of kewra and/or rosewater, then these may be added along with rice while layering in step 8. If you prefer,add a hard- boiled egg per person only while serving. (I skip adding these essences and eggs.) Garnish with fried nuts and raisins. Step 10. Serve hot with a nice, cool tomato and onion "raita", some pickles and fried poppadums. Enjoy!

Tips

tsp is a teaspoon;  tblsp is a tablespoon

Mutton, here, is goat meat. For biriyani, I prefer using the "raan" or the hind leg portion as it is meaty enough without being too bony.

"Dum" cooking means to cover the vessel tightly and to let the ingredients cook without any loss of steam, on low heat. Many people use a ring of dough to seal the lid of the vessel while the "dum" happens. This ensures no steam escape. However, I find that a tightly fitting lid also does a good job of shutting in most of the steam.

While making a chicken biriyani, it is good to avoid the bony back portion.

In case of chicken, it needs to be cooked for about 20 to 25 minutes only in step 5.

Any left overs may be stored in the refrigerator and steamed in a colander or warmed well in the microwave.

Kerala meat cutlets or minced meat croquettes 

Cutlets, especially the non-vegetarian variety, have a great fan following in our home. Whenever there is "kheema" or minced meat in the house, the first request is always for cutlets. If there are green peas ("mutter") at home, then there is a toss up between "kheema mutter" and the cutlets.  Anyway, my family loves cutlets at any meal, so I make the mix and stock it in the fridge for quick use. I find that having a greater amount of mashed potato in the mix, makes for a smoother cutlet. The covering is crisp, but the inside is not so full of meat or chunky. That is something my family enjoys....a non-stringy, easily eaten patty. This is achieved by increasing the quantity of potato and using mince made with lean meat and no gristle.  Most other recipes have a much greater meat to potato ratio than that I do, but since my recipe meets with my family's continued unstinting approval, I like to make the cutlets this way, and I have found many others prefer them too. This is what I do.

Makes about 8 medium sized cutlets
Preparation and cooking time: 45 minutes to 1 hour

Ingredients

1. Meat mince (raw) - 1 cup
2. Potatoes (boiled and mashed) - 1 1/2 cups

Items 3 to 8 measured after chopping very fine:

3. Onions   -  2  teaspoons
4. Ginger   - 1 teaspoon
5. Garlic   - 1/2 teaspoon
6. Green chillies  - 1/2 teaspoon
7. Fresh coriander leaves - 1 tablespoon
8. Curry leaves - 1 tablespoon


9. Fresh bread crumbs - a little more than 1 cup
10. Pepper powder - 1/2 teaspoon or according to taste
11. Red chilli powder - 1/2 teaspoon or according to taste
12. Turmeric powder - 1/2 teaspoon
13. Garam masala powder - 1/2 teaspoon
14. Egg white beaten - 1 or 2
15. Salt to taste
16. Oil for tempering and deep frying 

Method

1. Wash the mince in a wire mesh strainer under running water. Let it drain for 5 minutes or so. Transfer to a thick-bottomed vessel and add item no.s 10, 11, 12, 13  and 15. Add 3/4 cup of water, if it is mutton mince. Stir well so that the spices reach all parts of the mince. Cook till the mince is totally dry.  No need to pressure cook. Turn off heat and leave the mince to cool in a large platter.

2. Heat 2 tablespoons of oil in a pan and brown item nos. 3, 4, 5, 6 and 8. This need not be crisp. Add this to the mince in the platter.

3. Add the well mashed potatoes and chopped coriander to the above.

4. Adjust the seasoning and knead well.

5. Divide the mix into balls. Roll in beaten egg white and then bread crumbs. Makes about 8 balls.

6. Pour enough oil in a hot wok for deep frying. Let oil become quite hot, but not smoking hot.

7. When the oil is ready, take a mince-potato ball and flatten it a bit and slide it on the inside of the wok into the hot oil. Repeat with more mince-potato balls, making sure the oil is still quite hot and not crowded. The hot oil should reach above the cutlets, otherwise the cutlets could break. Turn over gently,  and remove each cutlet from oil when well browned and crisp. Drain on kitchen paper.

8. Serve hot with tomato sauce or just plain as a side dish. Enjoy!

Tips

The preferred meat used for these cutlets, in Kerala, is beef. Mutton/goat meat mince is a personal preference in our home here. If you are using beef mince, there is no need to add any water before cooking in step 1 as beef releases a lot of water and this needs to be boiled away to make it very dry.

Boneless beef cubes can be used for this recipe. Wash and drain and pressure cook as per step 1, without any added water. When its dry and cooled, mince in batches, in a dry grinder to get fine shreds of cooked beef mince. (You can mince this as fine or as chunky as you wish.) The recipe can be taken forward from step 2 onwards. (For this recipe, take 1 cup of raw beef cubes.)


I like to add one more step to this recipe to improve the flavour. My family loves these cutlets a bit more spicy. So, I take 1/2 tsp of black peppercorns, a 1/2 " piece of raw ginger, a couple of green cardamoms (whole),  1 whole clove, 1/2'' of cinnamon and fresh curry leaves from 3 sprigs and dry grind it with half a slice of bread. You will get a very fragrant bread crumb mix.  Add this at step 3. The added flavour is quite nice.

While flattening the mince-potato balls, make sure cracks are sealed back into shape.

It is important that the cutlets are fairly well immersed in the hot oil while frying. Hot oil seals the cutlets from all sides and there is less chance of them breaking and flooding the oil.

These cutlets can also be shallow fried, but then the sides remain pale. They can also be baked after brushing with oil, in a medium oven till brown. A lot of cutlets can be made ready at the same time without  much oil and standing near a hot stove.

Fresh bread crumbs are made by whizzing a few slices of (any) bread in a dry grinder for a few seconds. The remaining crumbs can be stored in the freezer.

I prepare cutlet mix from at least 6 or 7 cups of meat. All will not be used right away. So, I store the remaining mix in the fridge and use it over the next 2 to 3 days. I like the convenience.

Usually, the ratio between meat and potatoes is 2 cups of meat to about 1/2 cup of mashed potatoes.

This is an excellent recipe for hors d'oeuvres.  The cutlets can be smaller and served with a dipping sauce.

Important - It is imperative to follow some safety precautions while deep frying. I avoid dropping  the cutlets into the hot oil. Instead, these are slid down the sides of the wok into the oil or else placed gently into the oil to avoid a hot oil splash.