Sunday, May 18, 2008

Bombay Biryani



Taste and Create is a food blogging event, founded by Nicole, and for my first involvement in this fantastic themed event, I was paired up with Simran from Bombay Foodie. I love all food from India, so of course I was both excited and delighted with the selection. Each month Nicole draws participating blog names out of a hat and pairs them up with another blog. You visit the blog, scour over it with a fine toothed comb, chose a dish which catches your eye, recreate it, and then blog about it. Wonderful concept, and a great way to really delve into a blog. Simran loves to bake and she is also a "salad specialist", but I knew I had to make something authentically Indian, so I chose her aloo chhole biryani. The middle layer in this biryani is packed full of flavour, and she uses black chane as the key ingredient. As Simran explains "For the uninitiated, (that would be me) black chane are a smallish brown variety of chickpea grown in India". As I didn't have this particular ingredient, I substituted ordinary chickpeas, soaked overnight and cooked in the pressure cooker. I'm sure that this substitution didn't take anything away from the flavour of this dish however.

When I turned out the biryani "cake", I was extremely pleased with its appearance and even more so, the taste. What a fabulous dish to serve as a side at a dinner party. Opulent and elegant. Thanks Simran for taking our family to Bombay this evening.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow! This has to be the most diffult dish on my blog. Kudos to you for trying it...yours looks amazing. I hope you enjoyed this taste of India.

Peter M said...

Pam, I love the layers and the melding colours.

Pam said...

Thanks Simran. I enjoyed cooking your biryani and the effort that went into it was well rewarded by the look and flavour of the finished dish.

Pam said...

Hi Peter, it's kinda like a sponge cake with the decadent cream and jam in the middle isn't it?

Anonymous said...

Hi! I made your pomegranate, feta, cucumber and mint salad. It was a perfect combination!

Johanna GGG said...

this has to be one of the most attractively presented curries I have ever seen - one day I would love to try this, but maybe not today!

Johanna GGG said...

well I wanted to make this the very day I saw this but it took a few days - however I had made my attempt - not as spectacularly perfect as yours (although still v pleasing) - how did you get it to hold its shape so well?

Pam said...

Johanna, I used a non-stick cheesecake tin, the type with removable rim. I also brushed the inside with a little oil. Press down quite firmly on your mixture, and then bake it for 5 minutes or so in the oven. Maybe it was beginners luck for me?