Kitchen Tantra

Power Food:

Tryptopan-shrimps:

Shrimps Biriyani:

Iral Biriyani. Era Biriyani. Roiyalu Biriyani. Prawn Biriyani.

Shrimps:Shrimps contain sleep promoting amino acids - tryptopan in them. So if you're suffering from insomnia....fix shrimps for dinner. Or sea food namely, cod, tuna and trout are also abuntant in this amino acid. Better balance your sea food with enough carbohydrate diet for your dinner. Tryptopan also revitalises your brain cells! As you guesses.....sleep sorts out to questions. Most of your problems could be solved by mere sleeping it over. Tryptopan helps to sort out the questions and queries....or long lost memories.

When I was in Hyderabad, I hardly ever eat in the mess(hostel mess). Most of the time I managed with raw veggies and fruits. I hated hostel food....so very badly. Well....later I started cooking lightly in the room itself! Like I had one small electric stove and had few vessels to manage. On one particular day...myself and my friend Balaji went for a shopping, we came across some 'frozen shrimps' in the aisle.....we thought of cooking our own meal! Since....for biriyani all it takes is just one vessel and it was pretty handy for me to make this recipe. Though on the other day shrimp biriyani didnt turn out so well...as I expected...it was okay!

Ingredients:

Cinnamon sticks 2-4
Cloves 5
Cardamom pods 5
Bay leaves 3
Biryani flower 2
Marathi mokku 3
Ghee 2 cup
Green chillies 6-8 slitted
One large onion finely sliced
3-4 ripe tomato finely chopped
Mint one cup
Lemon juice 2-4 spoons
Ginger-garlic paste 4-6 spoon
Coriander leaves 4-6 twigs- chopped
Curd half cup
Rice 3 cups(Basmathi rice)
Shrimps/Prawns medium sized 1/4 kilo
Salt to taste
Red chili powder 1-2

Method:

1. Add 1 spoon of ginger-garlic paste with shrimps. Further add salt +lemon juice + curd and set this aside/in fridge. Maybe for 20 minutes minimum.

2. Pour generously ghee in the pressure cooker and bring it to smoky hot...now add the spices one by one...cinnamon, cardamom, bay leaves, cloves, maratti mokku and birinji flower to it. Let them fry for a while.

3. Add chillies, and wait till it splutters.

4. Followed by onion and remaining ginger-garlic paste. Fry them well till its raw smell leaves.

5. Now add tomatoes, coriander leaves and mint. Fry them until all water content evaporates and oil shows up in the top.

4. Now start adding marinated shrimps to this and toss them well.

5. Add food color(optional), salt and red chili power. Semi cook them without adding any water....until the raw smell of chili powder goes.

6. Now add water 5 cups of water and bring it to boil followed by rice. Pressure cook them over medium heat till one whistle or two maximum. Never release the pressure before time. Let it be on dum for 10-15 minutes.

7. Garnish with roasted cashew nuts.

Serve hot with onion raita or brinjal serva.