The following recipe comes from Sankeerthanam a wonderful blog full of delicious Indian recipes
Ingredients
- Fish- 2-3 Medium sized whole fish any desired fish
- Chili Powder – 1 tsp
- Turmeric Powder – 1/2 tsp
- Ginger – One piece – thinly sliced
- Green Chili -2 -thinly sliced
- Garlic – 2 large pods(10 small pods) – thinly sliced
- Onion – 1/2 medium size – sliced
- Tomato – 1 small – sliced
- Onion – 1 medium sliced
- water – 1/4 cup(for cooking fish)
- salt – according to taste
- Basmati Rice or Biryani rice – 2 cups
- Onion -1 medium – sliced thinly for frying
- Raisins and Cashews(Optional)
- Water – 4 cups
- Ghee(Clarified Butter) – 2 tsp
- Vegetable oil – 1 tsp
Preparation method:
- Clean the Fish and apply the chili powder, turmeric powder. Coarse grind Green chili, Garlic and Ginger and add to Fish pieces. Keep it aside for 15 minutes.
- Heat 2 tsp oil in a thick bottomed pan. Add onion and tomato and cook until the onion start turns pale. Add enough salt and chili and turmeric powder add the fish start cooking. Keep it covered with onion and tomato to keep the fish moist.
- Wash the Basmati rice with water to remove any impurities.
- In a thick bottom vessel(must have a properly fitting lid), add the oil and ghee and heat it.
- Fry the onion slices over low heat till golden brown, separate from oil and keep it aside.
- Fry Cashew and raisins and keep it aside.Add the basmati rice to the oil and fry for 1 minute(just warm up only, so that rice is covered with oil) Add the remaining liquid from fish to the rice
- Add the enough warm water so that total liquid in rice is around 3 and 1/2 cups.(Rice cooking time and water requirements varies by variety of rice, add the remaining water if rice dries up)Add salt to taste and some gharam masala or whole spices.
- Cook the rice at high heat till the water starts to boil and cover the lid and Cook at low heat till the rice absorbs all the water(This is the tricky as there are chances that rice sticks to the bottom if dries up, or the rice is not cooked properly, make sure the the water used is slightly less than the amount of rice and cook at low heat and check the rice when you see the steam coming out of the rice almost stops). When complete, rice must be soft, but it should not stick to each other
- In a 12 inch baking pan add 1/2 of the rice as a layer at bottom and then add the fish pieces and spread half of the pudina and coriander leaves and the fried onions ,cashew and raisins.Spread the remaining rice and spread some Gharam masala on top of the rice and cover with aluminium foil and bake it at 300 degree F for 25 – 30 minutes.
Garnish with remaining Pudina (mint) and Coriander leaves, fried onions, cashew and raisins.
While this dish has quite a lot of steps it will not disappoint you.
