Culinaria – Biryani

We have all had the experience of seeing something or hearing about it and then it shows up everywhere. For example, you get a new car — an alien green Kia Soul, for example — and then you see the exact thing everywhere when before you never noticed it. Or a friend tells you about a band they have recently discovered and suddenly you hear their music and see the band name everywhere: playing on the radio, printed on t-shirts, mentioned on social media — well, the last one is probably because your phone is always listening… There is a name for this studied psychological phenomenon, Baader-Meinhof. It is basically selective attention bias and it happens to pretty much everyone. And now that you have read this far, you might well see this subject mentioned a few more times this week, thus proving the existence of the very thing.

My most recent go-round with this fascinating brain trick has been with biryani. It is not surprising that my attention is selectively focused on food, my attention is practically always focused on food. But in this case, the item in question is this delicious rice dish. A couple of weeks ago I met a couple of friends for dinner at my favorite Indian/Nepalese restaurant in Lafayette – Tandoori Kitchen. I have my favorite dishes there — paneer makhni, aloo gobi, saag, lamb vinadloo, Himalayan chilli chicken, daal tadka…now that I get started I realize that I love everything. And I am hungry now! But my eye and attention were caught by the biryani. I have eaten and enjoyed biryani but it isn’t top of mind when I order. This time, however, something about it seemed just perfect. And when I suggested we order it one of my friends said she had made biryani the night before, which inspired me and I made it at home the next night. And just today a work colleague was having biryani for lunch. All of these seemingly unusual biryani incidents have led me here — a dive into this spiced, flavorful, filling, delightful rice dish.

It is commonly believed that biryani by that name was introduced to India by Persian traders sometime around the 15th Century AD. There is a history of rice dishes being eaten in the area long before then, but this specific codified dish — the word biryani is thought to derive from the Persian word birian — fried before cooking, is surely related to pilafs, pilavs, and pilaus, traditionally eaten in a wide swathe of the world including parts of Europe, Asia, and Africa and following human migration to the rest of the world in the past couple hundred years.

Tandoori Kitchen’s Biryani

The most common biryani found in American Indian restaurants is probably the Hyderabadi version. Not surprisingly, there are dozens of regional varieties of biryani, but the Hyderabadi version seems to reign. It is often spicier, more savory, and highly aromatic. Basmati rice, ghee, onions, generous portions of toasted ground spices, and often a marinated chicken layer bring so much flavor to this dish that there are songs about it. I am not kidding, look it up! The dish is both satisfyingly filling and fancy enough for a special occasion. Cooking it is involved, this is not a 1-pot, 1-hour dish for a busy weeknight. This dish requires forethought, planning, time, a nimble hand, and patience. But oh mama, it is worth it.

There are many recipes for biryani to be found online and in myriad cookbooks. I won’t include a recipe here as, see above, the dish is complex and time consuming. Instead, I will put a recipe for raita, a cooked cucumber yogurt dish often served with biryani to complement the flavors and cool the burn of the spices. You can find versions of raita that include radishes, carrots, or onions. This one, though, is a very basic recipe using ingredients that you probably have or can easily get, that you can make in advance, and that you can eat with pretty much everything from biryani to falafel to simple raw vegetable salad.

Basic Raita

• 2 cups Greek yogurt (full fat is always the best choice)
• 2 English cucumbers or 4 smaller Persian cucumbers (you can use standard cucumbers in a pinch, just remove the tough skin and the inner seeds)
• ½ tsp granulated salt (Himalayan pink salt is great here) 
• ¼ tsp ground cumin (to be fancy, toast the seeds then grind them)
• ¼ cup chopped cilantro or a combination of cilantro and mint
• (optional – 1 small garlic clove, finely minced – do not used jarred garlic, you will taste the difference here)

Peel and trim the cucumbers. If there are seeds in the cucumbers, remove them with a spoon. Grate the cucumbers into a bowl. Add all the other ingredients, holding out a tablespoon of the fresh herbs, then stir to mix. Taste and adjust with salt. Top with the remaining herbs. Enjoy.

Happy Baader-Meinhof everyone.