Weekends is generally the time I make pickles and spice blends that I store and use for the month. There are quite a few things that need to be made, but for today I will share with you how I make the Biryani Masala or the Biryani Spice blend.
Every family has a way of making their own spice blends that they use in their recipes, but of late, I have noticed that many folks tend to buy their spice blends including garam masala, biryani masala and such. In my opinion, these blends are super easy to make and remains fresher for longer and the adds so much flavor to meals as compared with the store-bought brands. And it hardly takes much time or the effort.
Ingredients
Coriander Seeds – 1 ½ tablespoon
Fennel seeds – ¾ tablespoon
Cumin seeds – 1 ½ tablespoon (I generally add ¾ tablespoon of black cumin and ¾ tablespoon of regular cumin. But today regular cumin is all I have).
Black cardamom – 3
Cinnamon – 1 tablespoon
Black pepper – 1 tablespoon
Cloves – ½ tablespoon
Star anise – 3 flowers
Green cardamom – 3
Nutmeg – ½
Mace – 2
Dried red chili – 3 (I am using the Byadigi chili. It is native to Southern India. You can use any chili of your choice based on your heat preference. The Scoville heat unit (SHU) of the Byadigi chili is about 50,000 – 100,000 SHU).
Turmeric – ½ tablespoon
Dried bay leaf – 4
Stone flower – 4 – 5 small (I just cannot seem to find my little jar of stone flower spice. So, I'm going to leave this one out too).
Method
Dry roast all the ingredients except the turmeric powder for about 5 minutes. Ensure that you don’t burn any spices.
Allow it to cool.
*I add all my ingredients starting with a cold pan.
*It should look like this in about 4 - minutes. Cooking on medium flame. A good indicator that your blend is ready is that everything starts to feel crisp.
Add the red chili, nutmeg, mace and cardamoms and blend well. (I am adding these first, as the nutmeg and cardamom takes more time to grind into a fine powder. You can always sieve this blend to get a very fine powder).
Add all other ingredients and blend well. This takes a couple of minutes in my mixer.
You can always make more of the biryani masala spice blend and it remains fresh in the pantry for about a month, you can keep it in the freezer if you don’t use it often, so you don’t have to make it every month like I do.
Biryani is not the only recipe I add this spice blend to. I add it in curries and as a marinate too sometimes in my cooking.
I cook every day. Well, almost every day. And there are days where I cook multiple recipes. Having said that, I am not an authentic or professional chef. Many of my recipes are experiments as I try to adapt and use the ingredients I already have.
My mantra is you should cook food just the way you like it. I don’t mean any disrespect to traditional methods of cooking or any cultures where the cuisine originates from. But I merely try to cook it with what I have and what is available to me and sometimes, I add ingredients that I want to use up.
All photos are my own.
All photos are shot on a mobile phone.
