Ingredients
For fish masala
King fish - ½ kg
Onion - 2 big
Crushed Ginger & garlic - 1 tablespoon each
Crushed green chilli - 1 tablespoon
Tomato - 3 medium
Coriander powder - 1 tbsp
Curd - ¼ cup
Ghee/dalda - 1 tbsp
Oil
For marination
Chilli powder - 2 teaspoon
Pepper powder - ½ teaspoon
Turmeric powder - 1 teaspoon
Ginger & garlic - 1 table spoon each
Small onion - 3,4
Fenugreek - a pinch
Mustard - a pinch
Salt
For white paste
Coconut - 2 tablespoon
Poppy seeds - ½ tablespoon
Cashew nuts - 1 tablespoon (soaked in water)
For rice
Basmati rice - 2 cups
water - 4 cups
Cardamom - 6
Cinnamon - 2 medium size stick
Clove - 6
Ghee - 2 tbsp
Lemon Juice - 1-2 tablespoon
Salt
Instructions
Grind together all the ingredients for marination into a fine paste. Marinate the cleaned fish pieces with this
paste for ½ an hour.
Grind together the ingredients for white paste & keep aside.
Shallow fry the marinated fish till it is half cooked.
Add 1 tablespoon ghee to this oil & saute the onion till it becomes soft. Add the crushed ginger, garlic & green
chilli & saute for 3 minutes. Add 1 teaspoon coriander powder. When the oil starts appearing add the tomatoes.
When the tomatoes are cooked well add ¼ cup curd. Mix well. Add the shallow fried fish pieces. Make sure that the fish pieces are covered with gravy. After 5 minutes add the white paste. When the gravy becomes thick & fish is cooked
remove from fire.
Heat 1 tablespoon ghee in a pan and add the whole masala (cardamom, cloves & cinnamon). Add the washed rice.
When the rice starts cracking add 4 cups of boiling water, salt, coriander & mint leaves & lemon juice. Cook the rice
till the water is completely dried.
Butter a baking dish. Spread one layer of fish masala first & a layer of rice on top of it. Repeat the same. Top
layer should be rice.
Preheat the oven at 200 C, 10 mins before baking. Reduce the oven temp to 180 C and bake for 20-25 minutes. Spread
a wet cloth over the dish while baking. Garnish with fried onions,nuts, raisins. Serve the biriyani with
raitha,mango chutney & pappad.
Notes
Stove Top Method:
If you dont have an oven to bake the biriyani, do the following method.
1. Layer the rice and masala in a greased heavy bottomed vessel/non stick pan & cover it with a tight lid.
2. Heat a thava/dosa kallu, when it is really hot, place the biriyani vessel on top of that. Reduce the heat to the
lowest flame & cook for 20-25 mins. Keep the heat at the lowest flame throughout, otherwise it might get burnt.
3. Also place a pan of boiling water on top of the biriyani vessel at the same time.
Make sure you stir the fish masala gently, otherwise the fish pieces may break. There are chances of fish pieces
breaking and the bones get mixed up in the gravy, even if you stir gently. So be careful about the separated bones,
while serving children.
