My Dear Old Friend: Mushroom Briyani

I was caught up with a thought of doing something different for lunch on an active Saturday. I just felt like eating Briyani, after a long time. The best part of cooking is that, a craving immediately turns into a meal without any second thought!! The moment I thought about mushrooms, the only thing that came to my mind was those childhood days when I and my sister ventured out with my older cousins to hunt for farm mushrooms. They were not cultivated, but they grew densely by themselves after a good rain. There used to be heavy competition for picking those. Even before it was dawn, there were groups who set out for such expeditions. The rule was that the mushrooms belonged to those who found them, does not matter whose farm it was on. Few days were really yielding and exciting. Those wild mushrooms were white, umbrella mushrooms, and only few experts in the family were able to differentiate between the good ones and bad ones, as there were few poisonous ones too. Later, mom or aunt made a simple curry that would only highlight the taste of mushrooms. When button mushrooms became very popular, it was not exciting anymore to long for a mushroom dish. I tried the organic brown umbrella mushrooms from the food stores here to imitate the taste, but no success. Now, I am only left with memories!

Mushroom Briyani

Ingredients:

Basmati rice - 2 cups

Mushroom - 20, halved

Onion - 2 medium sized, chopped into long, fine slices

Tomato - 3 medium sized, chopped 
Ginger & Garlic paste
Clove - 10

Cardamom - 4

Cinnamon stick - 3 inch strip broken into little pieces

Bay leaf - 5

Ghee - 4 tbsps

Freshly ground ginger garlic paste - 4 tbsps

Freshly prepared coconut milk or organic coconut milk - half cup

To grind:

Mint leaves - one cup, loosely packed

Cilantro leaves - 1 cup, loosely packed

Green chilies - 3 numbers and spicy ones

I used a heavy bottomed stainless steel Prestige pressure cooker. The ghee is homemade, and it had a great fragrance, and the taste was a lot better than the store-bought ones. 

1. Wash the rice once and soak it with ~ 2 cups of water for a cup of rice. Make sure the soaking time does not exceed 30 minutes.

2. Grind 7 pods of garlic with three inch ginger to make a smooth paste.

3. Grind the leaves with chilies to make a fine paste. 

4. Pour the ghee in the pre-heated pressure cooker. Once it is hot, toss the whole spices, followed by ginger garlic paste and chopped onions. 

5. When the onions turned translucent, add the chopped tomatoes and mix well. Wait for the oil to separate out.

6. Now pour the leaves paste and wait for the paste to fry well. 

7. Once the oil separates out, add halved mushrooms, then soaked rice. Make sure you drain all water before adding rice to the mixture. The rice needs frying before the water is added.

8. Once the hiss sound started turning intense, add the drained water, coconut milk and salt. 

9. Close the cooker and wait for the first whistle. If you have a gas stove, turn off the stove after the first whistle, and leave it right there on the stove. If it is an electric stove, immediately move the cooker from heat. Give few minutes to settle down. 

10. After exactly five minutes, release the pressure completely and open it. It is highly advisable to transfer the contents into a china dish.

You can add up spices, if you have a spice-tooth. One can add mixed vegetables instead of mushrooms.

My mom is an expert in making this one. I know the struggles she went through to bring this to perfection. There were many suggestions from cousins, a few neighbors, a few TV shows and many book recipes before she got it right. One main problem was that, after transferring the content, she found a thick charred layer at the bottom. It was when she used more Ghee that she got rid of the problem. Ours was one health conscious family that she was not generous enough to use those extra spoons of ghee earlier. Finally, the problem got settled in favor of all the Briyani Cravers in the family.

Hope you enjoy cooking this simple, yet delicious dish. Let me know how it turned out, and share with me your thoughts!