Wash and soak the rice for 15 minutes in 1 cup of water. Puree 2 tomatoes in mixer and keep aside.
Grind the shallots(small onion),garlic,ginger and fennel seeds into a fine paste using little water.
Chop the onion and mint leaves finely. In a pressure cooker, heat oil and ghee. Add the sliced onions and mint leaves.
When onions turn brown, add the grind paste to this and saute in a low flame till the raw smell goes off.
Add the tomato puree. Add chilli powder, turmeric powder and salt. Saute for few minutes in a medium low flame till the raw smell goes off and the oil oozes out on sides.
Add the green peas. If u don’t get get green peas you can skip it else u can add Butter beans too. Add the biryani masala. I used store bought biryani masala. You can add garam masala too.
Add the rice now. Saute for a minute and add the soaked water too. Mix well.
Mix well and add the coconut milk. I added the store bought one. Check out my home made coconut milk recipe.
Close the lid of the cooker and keep the flame to medium. When it gives one whistle, keep the flame low and let this be like this for 10 minutes. Switch off the flame after 10 minutes. Fluff it with a fork once the pressure is released. Serve hot with any raita.
We had with Potato fry, onion raita and i served Curd Rice and Fruit custard.
Note: Seeraga samba recipe 1 and 1/4 cup Water 1 cup Coconut milk 3/4 cup Tomato 2 Onion 1 Red chili powder 3/4 tsp Biryani Masala 1 tsp Salt as needed Turmeric powder 1/4 tsp Ginger a small piece Garlic 4 cloves Small onion 8-9 Fennel seeds 1 tsp Mint leaves few Oil + Ghee 1 tblsp each Green peas 1/4 cup *Generally jeera samba rice is used to make tomato biryani, if u want u can use basmati rice too. Method with step wise pictures:
If using basmati rice, reduce the water to 1/2 cup. Do not skip mint leaves and coconut milk. While grinding the masala you can saute the shallots in oil and grind, which will enhance the taste. You can add a tsp of cashew nuts while grinding. Bay leaves can be added while adding onions.
Thanks
- You had mentioned 1/2 cup water to soak basmati rice. When adding rice to the mixture should I add the remaining water as well or drain the water and add only rice
- After the first whistle I had kept it at medium flame as you had said. but in about 2 minutes another whistle came. so I had to really lower the flame and let it be for another 8 minutes. The result was the rice was over cooked. Please advice how it should be done correctly
- Is there a way to do this without coconut milk? Thanks
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