An Indian one pot meal. Fish marinated, fried, cooked in spicy masala gravy and then layered with rice. A really delicious one 🙂 I used pomfret which turned out awesome. You can also try seer fish or king fish.
Ingredients
- ½ kg fish
Marination
- 1 tsps chilli powder
- 1 ½ tsps pepper powder
- ½ teaspoon turmeric powder
- ½ tablespoon ginger (crushed)
- ½ tablespoon garlic (crushed)
- 1 teaspoon lemon juice
- ½ teaspoon salt
Masala
- 2 tbsps ghee
- 2 numbers onion (medium)
- 1 tablespoon ginger (crushed)
- 1 tablespoon garlic (crushed)
- 5 Chilly green
- 1 teaspoon coriander powder
- 1 teaspoon garam masala
- 2 tomato (medium)
- 2 tbsps curd
- 2 tbsps coconut grated
- 2 tbsps cashew
- ½ bunch coriander leaves
- ½ bunch mint leaves
- salt
Rice
- 3 tbsps ghee
- 2 cups basmati rice Jeerakasamba/Biriyani/
- ½ tablespoon Ani seed
- 3 cinnamon (1" stick)
- 1 Star Anise (thakolam)
- 4 Cloves
- 3 Cardamom Seeds
- 2 Bay Leaf
- 1 sprig curry leaves
- 4 cups water
- 1 lemon juice salt
- salt
Garnish
- ghee
- 2 tbsps cashew nut
- 1 tablespoon raisin
- 1 number onion (medium)
Layering
- coriander leaves
- mint leaves
Instructions
- Grind ginger and garlic. Marinate cleaned fish with the ingredients listed under marination - chilli powder, pepper powder, turmeric powder, ginger, garlic, lemon juice and salt. Keep it aside for 30 minutes. I used pomfret which turned out awesome. You can also try seer fish or king fish.
- Heat oil in a flat pan. Shallow fry the fish pieces for 2 minutes each on both sides at medium flame.
- Fry fish in batches.
- Prepare masala - Thinly slice onions. Soak cashew in hot water for 10 minutes. Heat ghee in a pan. Use a flat surfaced pan so that it would be easy to add and mix fish pieces towards the end.
- Saute these onions well until golden brown. Adding salt, helps the onion to get cooked fast.
- Grind ginger, garlic and green chilli. Add it to the above pan and saute well. Add ghee as needed.
- Add garam masala and saute for a minute. Add sliced tomatoes and saute until tomatoes are done.
- Mix the curd and cook for 2 -3 minutes.
- Saute the grated coconut until golden brown. Let it cool for 5 minutes.
- Grind the coconut and cashews (previously soaked), with some water and make it a good paste.
- Add coconut cashew mix and mix it with the masala.
- Chop mint and coriander leaves. Mix it with the masala. Add ½ cup water, mix well and add salt as required.
- Then add fried fish. Make sure that fish is covered in the gravy.
- Cook it for around 10 minutes or until fish is done.
- For rice preparation - Clean rice. Heat ghee in the pan / cooker. Fry aniseeds.
- Fry cinnamon, bay leaf, cardamom seeds, curry leaves, cloves, star anise.
- Once it is sauted well, add rice. Saute it till rice is crispy. Add ghee if needed.
- Add 4 cups water and lemon juice to it with enough salt. Cover and cook until rice is done. Don't pressure cook. It would approximately take 15 - 20 minutes.
- For garnish - Thinly slice onions and deep fry it in ghee. Sprinkle salt and bit sugar. Roast cashews and raisins in ghee.
- ** Never miss this step. Layer and cook - You can either layer the biriyani and bake in the oven or you can cook on stovetop. I have tried both. Preheat the oven at 350F. Layer a pan with alternating layers of rice and the fish masala. Add coriander leaves, mint leaves, 1 teaspoon ghee, fried onions, cashews and raisins at every layer. Cover the pan with aluminium foil. Bake for 20 minutes. Without aluminium foil, rice gets dried up easily.
- If you wanna cook on stovetop, layer the biriyani in a cooker or in a pan. Cover with a lid and cook for 20 minutes. Rice and biriyani masala gets blended well with this. You need not add water since biriyani masala has good gravy content.
- Serve it with raitha, pickle and papad.
Notes
Masala preparation - Instead of ghee, I have also used the leftover oil from frying fish for the masala preparation. It worked out for me 🙂
Looks yum! and great step by step pics
Thanks Indu :)
Biriyani looks so yummy
Thanks Suji :)
looks yummy.....
Thanks Elizabeth!!
will try this for sure .Thanks Jane chechi :)