With the rest of my leftover lamb, I thought I might as well be creative and do something different. And since I absolutely love lamb biryani I came up with this simple, rice-cooker version with leftovers. I’ll admit, it’s seems sacrilegious to make biryani with leftovers. In a rice cooker.
Usually I use a biryani curry, and go the whole way by baking it in the oven.
But this was meant to be easy. Besides Alison didn’t have biryani curry or any spices I could blend. Only packaged Malaysian chicken curry paste, which I wanted to try anyway. That would do. We have yogurt in the fridge so we can easily make some cucumber raita.
You can use any curry powder. The best kind for this recipe is Indian curry powder specially for biryani. For more on the curry paste, see NOTES at end of post.
Also, I didn’t even want to clean a blender. Instead I grated some ginger, chopped some onion, garlic and mint to make the aromatic base.
I fried the aromatics, added the curry paste, tomato, yogurt, butter and the drained rice, threw in some spices, then some peas and frozen cauliflower, and dumped it all in the rice cooker. I added the lamb halfway.
The spices typically used are cardamons, black cardamon, cloves and cinnamon. I found some cloves, peppercorns, star anise, black cardamon left over from a packet of pho spices that I had used. Even a stick of cinnamon and a few cloves would be enough.
If you don’t have a rice cooker, use a non-stick pan with a lid. Instructions for using pan is in recipe.
The seasoned rice tasted authentic, but I thought we lost the lamb flavor in the rice cooker. I put it in too late.
Leftover from leftover biryani
But I tweaked it further and improved it. We had made enough biryani to get another two meals out of it. (Which meant that the lamb got us through five or more meals!)
In one meal I sliced some cold lamb and fried it very quickly in a little oil to bring out the lamb’s rich flavor. Then I mixed it into the microwaved reheated biryani rice. It was quite yummy. See photo following. The asparagus and potato was tossed in from the leftover Leg of Lamb dinner!
For lunch one day, I sliced and fried the remaining lamb, and then heated the biryani by frying the rice in some oil and onions. It was even yummier. I garnished with some raw red onion because I had some. Notice the lamb slices are getting smaller. No more lamb!!!
Quick lamb biryani
1 small onion
3 cloves garlic
4 large pieces mint leaves
I tablespoon grated ginger
3 tablespoons oil
1 tablespoon curry paste, or 1 tablespoon curry powder mixed with 1 tablespoon water
1 tablespoon butter or clarified butter (optional)
1 small tomato, chopped
2 tablespoons yogurt
1 cup basmati rice, soaked for at least 20 minutes and drained
½ cup peas
1 cup frozen cauliflower
3-4 cloves
1 black cardamon
3 cloves cardamon
1 stick cinnamon
1½ cups chicken stock or water
Slice half the onion into half rings. Set aside. Chop the rest onion with the garlic and mint and blend in the ginger. Set aside.
Heat a non-stick pan, and when hot, add 1 tablespoon oil. Add the half onion rings and fry until onions are soft and darkened. Set aside in a small plate until use as garnish.
Return pan to heat. Add remaining oil and when oil is shimmering, add onion-garlic-mint-ginger blend. Fry on medium heat until onions are soft and translucent.
Add the curry paste and fry the paste, blending it with the onion mix. Lower heat to medium-low and continue to fry.
Add butter and continue to fry to blend curry base.
Add tomato and yogurt and mix well.
Add rice, raise heat to medium, and mix well with curry base.
Add peas, cauliflower and spices.
Transfer rice and vegetables to a rice cooker. Add water, stir well and press cook.
If not using a rice cooker, bring water to a boil. Cover pan and lower heat to a low simmer. Cook for about 20 minutes until rice is tender.
When rice is cooked, add lamb and stir up some rice to cover the lamb. Press warm. (Or if using a pan, cover and keep warm on low heat.) Wait for 5- 10 minutes before serving. Garnish with fried onion.
Cucumber Raita
Makes 1 cup
Preparation time: 5 minutes
½ cup plain yogurt
¼ cup milk
1 tablespoon chopped cucumber
2 cloves garlic, finely minced
1 teaspoon onion, finely minced
1 teaspoon salt
In a bowl blend yogurt with milk to liquefy. Add cucumber, garlic, onion and salt and stir to combine well. Add salt to taste, if necessary.
NOTES
The curry Alison had was this Malaysian curry sauce. Instead of powder form, this curry came as a paste and I thought it was very good. Saved me from blending the grounded spices with water. She bought this in Raleigh, NC where she lives. For more on curry powder, click here.
For authentic biryani, use Indian curry specially blended for biryani.
