Paneer Biryani🍚
This paneer dum biryani recipe is very different than any paneer biryani recipe you must have seen or read. Usually for paneer biryani, the paneer is marinated but in this recipe you do not need to marinate. This is the easiest recipe with all the ingredients from home. The detailed recipe with each step is below.
Ingredients-
The following ingredients are enough for 3-4 people.
Basmati rice - 1 cup
Oil
Ghee
Caramelised onions - 2 onions
Onions - 2 sliced
Beans - a handful chopped
Carrots - 1 chopped and boiled
Cauliflower small florets boiled
Green peas - 1/4 - 1/2 cup boiled
Biryani masala - 2 tbsp
Curd - 1/2 cup
Tomato onion puree - 2 tomatoes and one onion boiled and pureed
Cashew puree - 10 cashews soaked in water and pureed
Coriander leaves - 1/4 cup
Red chilly powder - 1 tsp
Turmeric powder - 1/2 Tsp
Dry mango powder - 1/2 Tsp
Paneer cubes - 200gms
Green chillies - 2
Bayleaf - 3
Cloves - 4
Ginger and garlic - 8 cloves of garlic and one inch ginger crushed or grinded
PROCESS-
In a container add water to cook rice. Add the bayleaf, green chillies slit and cloves to the water. Let it boil for sometime. Now add the uncooked basmati rice into the water. Cook the rice upto 80%. Do not throw the water. Reserve 1 cup of water from this.
The rice will be semi cooked upto 80%. You can also add any other whole spice while cooking the rice.
Cashew puree-
Take 10 cashews and soak them in water for about 10 mins. Now grind them in the mixer grinder with the same water.
Cashew puree will help in giving the creaminess and a rich flavour in the biryani. You can also add magaj seeds (50gms) soak with cashews and puree them together.
Tomato puree-
Take 2 tomatoes and one onion and boil them. Remove the tomato skin and grind the onions and tomato together into a smooth puree.
Biryani-
Boil your vegetables in water for 3-4 mins. They should not become very soft. In a big cooking pan add 2 tbsp oil and 1 tbsp ghee.
Now add the ginger and garlic. Now add sliced onions and cook them for 2 minutes. Now add the boiled vegetables to the onions and saute them for a minute. Add the turmeric powder, red chilly powder and dry mango powder to the vegetables.
You can also add 2 tsp of kashmiri lal mirch for the colour.
For the next step, we will add the biryani masala and coriander leaves and let it cook for 3-4 mins.
Now we will add 1/4-1/2 cup of curd into this and mix it well.
Adding curd to the biryani is the most essential step. The curd gives a good flavour and also combines everything together.
After you add the curd it will release water. So now we will add the paneer cubes and salt.
Suppose you are using the store bought thick curd, add 2-3 spoons of water into it.
Now add the prepared cashew puree and mix it really well.
So if you do not want to add cashew puree you can add 2-3 tbsp malai or fresh cream in it.
Now add the tomato onion puree into it and let it simmer for 3-4 minutes.
After the sabji is done for Biryani take out half of the sabji in a bowl. Start layering the rice in the container on the top of the sabji. Add 1 tbsp ghee on top. Next again put a layer of sabji and then again rice and ghee. After layering add 1/4-1/2 cup of remaining rice water to the biryani from all sides.
Adding the starch water to the biryani will avoid it sticking at the bottom while giving dum to it.
Some optional things to add - soaked kesar in water, ghee and kevra. In between the layers you can add these things. You can also add red food colour mixed in 1 tbsp of water and sprinkled on top of the biryani.
For the final layer top it with caramelised onions.
Cover it with a plate and keep it on tawa for 15 mins for the dum at the lowest flame. Now remove the plate mix everything and serve it hot.
Serve it with raita or gravy and mint chutney.
Pro tip- The mint chutney goes really well with this biryani.