Lamb Biriani - recipe from Mr D's cookbook

This Indian biriani, adapted for the Shuttle Chef, can be served on its own as a scrumptious meal, or dressed up for a festive occasion with fresh tomato chutney, vegetable curry side-dishes and crunchy popadoms. The lamb (mutton) needs to marinade for an hour at least (overnight if convenient). If you are cooking in the morning and want to save time then brown the onions the night before.

Ingredients for 6 - 8 servings (halve the ingredients for 3 people).

• 1 kg lamb or Mutton cut into 2 cm cubes.

For the Marinade:

• 4 green chillies (seeded and finely chopped)
• Coriander leaves (chopped - about 1 cup full)
• 1 clove garlic (crushed with salt)
• 2 tsp cumin powder
• 1 tsp chilli powder
• 1 tsp garam masala
• 1 small carton plain yoghurt (approximately 2 large serving spoons)

For the main recipe:

• 4 medium onions (thinly sliced).
• Oil or ghee (about 1 desertspoon).
• 1/2 kilo potatoes (can be either old potatoes peeled and cut into large chunks, or new potatoes halved).
• Pinch of saffron (optional, but adds a subtle flavour).
• 3 cups of long grain Basmati or Patna rice.

For garnish

• 100 g cashew nuts (or shredded almonds)
• 125 g sultanas

Method:

1. Cut the lamb (mutton) into 2 cm cubes.
2. Chop the chillies finely, crush the garlic, chop the coriander leaves and mix all with the spices and yogurt.
3. Mix all the marinade ingredients together and coat the meat with it. Cover and put in the fridge for 3 hours or longer.
4. Chop the onions, then fry in ghee or oil until golden with some browning (they should taste sweet). Remove from pan.
5. Add a little ghee or oil to the Shuttle Chef inner pot and heat marinaded lamb to seal the meat. (I prefer to add the meat a third at a time so that it is easier to turn.)
6. When the lamb is simmering hot, add the potatoes and 1/2 the fried onions. Stir well and bring back to simmer.
7. Mix the rice with 5 cups of boiling water and 1 desertspoon of salt.
8. Put the saffron in 1/2 cup hot water.
9. Stir 1/2 the rice into the lamb and potatoes, then spoon the other 1/2 of the rice and water on top.
10. Sprinkle the saffron water onto the top of the rice.
11. Make sure it is all simmering hot, put the lid on the Shuttle Chef pan and place it in the Shuttle Chef.
12. Leave to cook in the Shuttle Chef for 2 1/2 hours to get really tender, succulent meat. (You can leave the biriani cooking in the Shuttle Chef for up to 7 hours - the tatse is superb and the rice is still separate.)

To serve

Heat the remaining 1/2 of the browned onions, then add the nuts and sultananas. Stir occasionally until heated (the sultanas will plump). Open the Shuttle Chef and stir the onion, nuts and sultana garnish into the top layer of rice. Serve with Tomato Chutney.

Tomato Chutney

• 1 small green chilli (deseed and chop very finely)
• 1/2 medium onion (chop finely) I prefer sweet red onion.
• 3 large or 4 medium tomatoes (chopped)
• 1 dsp vinegar1 teaspoon sugar
• Good pinch salt

Method:

Stir all ingredients together, cover and leave in a cool place for flavours to blend.

Cooking Rice in a thermal cooker.

Probably like you, many of the meals I cook, involve serving them with rice and if you own a thermal cooker there are two way to deal with this.
As my Shuttle Chef has only one inner pot (some thermal cooker have two) I can either put a trivet in the bottom (its legs in the food) and put something like my cake tin containing part boiled rice on the trivet or I can cook my rice about 30 minutes before I want to eat in a separate saucepan.
In the past I have tried many methods of cooking rice. These include Jamie Oliver's rice cooking method from his book "Ministry of Food" and Madhur Jaffrey's methods from her book "Illustrated Indian Cookery". All of these work but take far more time than my method and do not seem to be any better.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup of rice per person. I always use Basmati rice except for when I am cooking Thai food. With Thai I prefer Jasmine rice.
• 1 cup of water for each 1/2 cup of rice.
• Salt to taste.

Method:

1. Add the water to a saucepan.
2. Add salt tasting the water until you can taste the salt. Vary the amount to your taste but remember if you can't taste the salt in the water your rice will tend to be bland.
3. Bring the water to the boil.
4. Pour the rice into the boiling water and bring it back to the boil.
5. Boil it gently (a rolling boil) for 5 minutes.
6. Turn off the heat and put a lid on the pan.
7. Leave for about 30 minutes and you then will have perfectly cooked rice.
8. Before serving fluff up with a fork.

Stocks - There are basic stocks in Mr D's Thermal Cook Book

Stocks are something that is ideally made in a thermal cooker. They are great to have in the freezer ready for use with soups, gravy or risotto.
The method of making them is the same. Once you have added the ingredients, brought them to the boil simmer for ten minutes then put in the thermal cooker and left for up to 8 hours. It is important to make sure the cooker inner pot is filled at least up to 3/4 to retain the heat for the longer cooking. Remember you can always freeze the stock (by putting 500ml portions into small freezer bags) so I always fill my Shuttle Chef to the top. If you are not freezing it keep it in the fridge until required.

If you are making a meat based stock to use for soups don't remove the layer of fat from the surface until you are ready to use it as this forms a seal to keep out the air.

VEGETARIAN ORIENTAL VEGETABLE STOCK:

To make this stock you need to keep your vegetable trimmings for a few days. Keep them in the fridge in a bag until you are ready to make the stock.

Ingredients:

• 3/4 fill your inner pot with water.


• 1 tbls of black peppercorns.


• 4 star anise.


• 6 cardamoms.


• 1 cinnamom stick.


• 1 piece of blade mace.


• 6 cloves.


• 1 tbls cumin seeds.


• 1 tbls coriander seeds.


• 2 bay leaves.


• 4 curry leaves.


• 1 stick of celery.


• 1 green chille (optional)


• 5cm of ginger chopped. No need to peel.


• 1 onion chopped.


• 3 cloves of garlic crushed.


• A selection of vegetable trimmings chopped roughly.

Bring to the boil. simmer for 10 minutes and then put into the outer insulated pot for 6 to 8 hours. Once ready strain and either freeze or keep in the fridge until ready for use.

Over the next few weeks I will be adding more stocks.

Beef Curry - for 2 people (Double everything for 4)

I made this curry for the first time last night in my Shuttle Chef. Because of the lack of quantity I decided to cook it in a container and partly immerse it in water in the cooker. This way of cooking is ideal for meals that do not have much liquid content or if you are cooking just for one or two people.

Ingredients:

500g beef cut into 2-3cm cubes (you could use lamb if you prefer)
1 tbsp of ghee (I prefer ghee for flavour but vegetable oil can be used instead)
100g of yogurt
1/2 tsp of cornflour
100g tomatoes chopped and skinned (tinned tomatoes are ideal)
1 small onion chopped
2 cloves of garlic grated or chopped very finely
6 cardamoms (these need splitting open. I do this by squeezing )
2 bay leaves
1/2 tbsp of turmeric powder
1 tbsp of coriander powder
1/2 tbsp paprika
1/2 tsp chili powder
1 tsp of salt (check before serving and add a little more if needed)

Method: ( You will need a pot that fits in the inner pot of the thermal cooker. I use my 6" cake tin in mine. You will also need something to stand the tin on in the inner pot. A food ring would do fine.)

1. Blend the cornflour with the yogurt in a bowl.


2. In a frying pan add the ghee and garlic


3. Heat the pan making sure the garlic does not burn.


4. Add the meat and brown.


5. Once browned add everything else and bring to the boil.


6. Once boiling put it into you cake tin and cover with parchment paper or foil to form a lid. Also you will need to make a handle either with string or a sling out of foil so that you can easily lift out the tin when cooked.


7. Put the food ring in the bottom of the thermal cooker inner pot.


8. Fill with boiling water up to the top of the food ring.


9. Put the cake tin into the inner pot.


10. Carefully top up with boiling water by pouring down the side (making sure that you don't pour it over the lid you made to cover the cake tin) until it is about 3/4 of the way up the side of the tin.


11. Put the inner pot onto a heat source and bring back to the boil.


12. Once boiling put on the lid and turn down to a simmer.


13. Simmer for 10 minutes then turn off the heat and put the inner pot into the thermal cooker outer pot and close the lid.


14. Cook for a minimum of 3 hours. Longer wont be a problem.


15. Serve with boiled rice.