Day 23 ... Rice with Durians

Carol brought some durians back from Segamat today. 

So, guess what we had for dinner? Oooh ...

The flesh was unbelievably soft, creamy and bitter-ish. 

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm ...

This is my bowl of rice with durians.
White rice mixed with some salt-sugar water.
Supposed to take with coconut milk but Grandmother
taught our family to take durians the healthier way.
Out of this world, the durians were, honestly. :D

Justine didn't want her fingers to smell of durians
because tomorrow she's attending a function. :D

After a hearty durian feast, we all drank water from the husks. Bryan never used to do that, but through the years, he would notice that my sisters, the kids and I never had any problems with sore throats or heatiness after durians, when he did. So, when You can't beat 'em join 'em.

Today, I had my shaker of The Green Drink in the morning. 
Yesterday's biryani for lunch. And durians for dinner. 
2 meals. No juice. Fruits. Lotsa Water.

Time of Posting: 1:01am

ps Today, Bryan showed me how to post all my photos of the same day in ONE blog entry. :D

Day 22 ...

Chilled fruits for dessert by Bryan.

Thursday, July 22, 2010

4pm to 8 pm & Home

Hayley, Hamidah and Gani came to the house today. We had a lot of fun making an attempt to cook Hyderabadi Biryani Chicken Rice for dinner. See the following entries. 

To Sum Up : 2 shakers of The Green Drink & One meal (dinner).

Time of Posting : 4:11 (Friday 23/7)

Makan ...

My, were we completely engrossed in our food or what ...

Bryan's plate ...

Bryan's first plate. 

We all had second helpings. :D

Hayley's turn ...

Justine and I were waiting patiently for our turn ...

Gani & Hami ...

Hamidah had the honour of starting our Biryani Makan ceremony. :D 

The ladle went clockwise.

Dinner for 6 ...

We were so hungry we did not notice the mis-matched plates. 

No cutleries. We all used our fingers to eat.

Step 6 ... Hyderabadi Biryani Chicken Rice

Hyderabadi Biryani Chicken Rice

Garnish & Serve.

Scooped the contents of the pot onto a large serving dish. Garnished with slices of red tomatoes, fresh sprigs of coriander and bright yellow slices of lemon. The aroma of the biryani just filled the home, tantalizing our taste buds. We were intoxicated by the delicious fragrant and appeared to be inhaling deeper than usual. :D

Step 5 (a) ...

Bryan whipped out a quick yogurt salad as an accompaniment. Chopped onions and coriander leaves roughly, added a pinch of salt, dash of black pepper, drops of olive oil, 1/4 tub of yogurt and juice of a lime. Oh Yum!

Step 5 ...

Time to remove the lid & be spellbound ...

The fragrant was simply amazing!
Remember what I said about the onions ...

Step 4 ...

Waiting Period.

The biryani chicken rice was left on the stove to cook at 5 - 15 - 10.

5 minutes on high heat.
15 minutes on medium heat.
10 minutes on low heat.

While waiting for the biryani to cook, we took a break and had chocolates and nougat that Hamidah bought for me from a recent trip overseas. And, re-checked the instructions on the cooking time.

Step 3 (a) ...

Should look like this. Scattered a handful of chopped mint leaves and coriander leaves on top. And a whole load of fried onions. :D Also, sprinkled a few teaspoons of "tumeric mixed with water" for the yellow coloring. I didn't get the saffron. Didn't know what it was then.

Step 3 ...

Time to marry the chicken and the rice.

So, transferred the chicken pieces into the cooking pot. Evened up the position of the chicken so they lay flatly on the bottom layer. Then transferred all the HALF-cooked rice on top. 

Step 2 ...

(1) SOAK RICE
While the chicken was slowly soaking up the ingredients, Hayley washed the rice and left it aside to soak for 30 minutes. After that, she strained it as above.

(2) FRY ONIONS
I was given the responsibility of frying the onions. Yeah, the easiest of the task was handed to me, and I had to bungle it. Hamidah said I was going in and out of the kitchen to check the video, that I kinda left the onions to brown too long. So later when You see the dark brown onions when the lid is removed from the pot, just pretend they are uh, 5 shades lighter. :D

(3) BOIL WATER
Meanwhile, Hamidah boiled half a pot of water. Added some cumin seeds. When the water was boiling, she added the strained rice (that has been soaked for 30 mins) into the boiling water. Added sea salt and oil. Tasted to make sure the water was a LIT - TLE bit saltish. Supposed to boil until the rice was HALF-cooked. So, once the rice started dancing in the pot, it was ready to be removed. At this point, the rice was not cooked yet, but we should have just removed it immediately. We didn't.

Our mistake was to dilly-dally a few minutes longer as we debated whether to remove - NOW?

NOW?

NOW?

Next time, we'll just remove at the first NOW. So, strained immediately and let it stand.

(As a result of the Now Now Now, the rice was a little bit on the softer texture although it was finger lickin' good...)

Step 1 ...

Marinate.

We marinated the chicken with all the herbs and spices required including cloves, cardamon seeds, cumin seeds, peppercorns, ginger-garlic-chilly-onion paste, mint leaves (fresh), coriander leaves (fresh), bay leaves, cashew nuts, tumeric powder, coriander powder, cumin powder, half a large tub of yogurt, sea salt and oil.

Amount : Agak-agak (Approximate).

We added star anise too and a half a packet of biryani mixed spice as we didn't have garam masala.

The recipe on the video also mentioned jevetri (mace) and saffron, but I didn't know what those were so I didn't get them. Saffron, now I know but jevetri, still a big blur. I also forgot to get cinnamon sticks.

Head Chef : Hamidah
Assitant Chef : Hayley
Ingredient Check : Me
Food Taster : Bryan & Gani