Easy Peasy Fish Biryani

Yeah I know, why again a dish with Fish as its mainstay ? To be honest, we Bengalis have a knack to seamlessly add fish to any dish to suit our tastebuds. Another reason being my little son ( Children remain little forever in front of parents!) loves biriyani and it is a nice way to camouflage fish into it which he does not like too much. Now a days since we have banned chicken dishes in our house because of Bird Flu in Bangalore, our fish intake has doubled to please our non-veg quota. So fish biriyani has caught up the fancy with foodies like us. Nothing much of an effort though.

Ingredients:
To make fish gravy you need:
4 medium sized Katla/ Rohu fish
2 Onion, ground to paste
2 Tomatoes, ground to paste
2 tsp Ginger-Garlic paste
1 tsp Turmeric powder
1 tsp Chilly powder
Salt to taste

Method to make fish curry:
Wash and clean the fish pieces. Marinade fish with little turmeric powder and salt for 15 minutes. Heat kadhai on medium flame and pour oil once it is heated. Let it come to smoking point and only then add 2 fishes at a time. Fry till light brown. Repeat with other 2 fish pieces. Place them on paper tissue to soak the oil and set aside.
In the remaining oil add onion paste and a pinch of salt. Fry until light golden brown, add ginger-garlic paste, turmeric, salt and chilly powder and fry till raw smell goes off. Now stir in the tomato paste and fry till it leaves oil. Add fried fish pieces and now comes the patience part where you just have to sprinkle some water and let this fry well by covering with a lid and cook it. Once the oil floats on top and you get (thick gravy)Makha Makha gravy its time to turn off the burner. Garnish this with some slited green chillies. Set aside.

For Biryani:
2 cups Basmati rice/ long grained rice {Rinse and wash the rice for 2-3 times, soak for 15-20 minutes then drain and keep aside}
1 tsp Biryani masala
4-5 Peppercorns
2 Cinnamon sticks
2 Black cardamom
3 Cloves
1 small Javitri phool
1 tsp Fennel seeds
1 Bay leaf
2 tbsp Ghee +2 refind oil
1/2 Turmeric powder
1/2 tsp Chilly powder

To garnish the biryani we need:
1 cup Onion, sliced
1/4 cup Cashews
Coriander leaves, chopped
2 tsp Kewra water {an aromatic water}

Fried garnishings for Fish Biryani:
Heat a large skillet and put ghee into it and fry cashews till light in color. Remove and set aside. In the same skillet add sliced onion and fry on slow flame. To speed up the caramelizing process add pinch of salt in it and continuing frying. When the color turns golden brown and looks very crisp, remove from skillet and let this cool.

Proceed ahead with Rice preparation: 
Add remaining oil in the skillet and let it heat, add bay leaf followed by fennel seeds, peppercorns, cinnamon sticks, cardamoms, javitri phool and cloves. Fry until it leaves out aroma then add drained rice, turmeric and chilly powder. Mix the rice with spices carefully so that grains remain intact and add the biryani masala powder. On medium flame keep frying the rice till color turns light. Add the gravy of fish curry that you cooked leaving aside the fish pieces. This way the rice will soak up all the flavour of fish gravy. Add double amount of water (for 2 cups rice =4 cups water) and add salt. Let the first boil come and then cover and cook for 12-15 minutes until done. Place the fish pieces on top of the rice layer and sprinkle some Kewra water, chopped coriander leaves, caramelized onions and finally the fried cashews. Cover and cook on low flame for another 5 minutes. Serve with raita. 

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