Biryani! Biryani is a celebration of life itself. Find yourself in a funk? Start making biryani and I bet the multitude of flavors and aromas wafting through your house will uplift your senses and put a smile on your face.

OK. I’m only half kidding.

If you are new to Indian cooking, or a new cook, don’t fret. Biryani may be tedious and time consuming, but it is not difficult to make. All you need is some patience and some passion. Some good basmati rice and saffron. Some fried onions and nuts. Some vegetables like jackfruit. And plenty of ghee.

Vegetable biryani can be cooked in the ‘dum’ style. Sadly, it is really hard to find a good veggie biryani. Most people just fry veggies in masalas and toss them with rice, or overcook the veggies so much that all you have is mush.

A biryani is mildly spiced, aromatic and flavorful. It is not hot!

One of the basic rules of biryani are that the amount of rice should be equal to the amount of meat. This requires you to guess how much your rice will yield when cooked. In the case of meat based versions, your meat is going to double in amount after being cooked. The reverse is true of vegetables.

Vegetables cook down!

So say you want to end up with about 8 cups of Biryani. You need 4 cups cooked rice and 4 cups cooked veggies. This means you should start with about 2 cups of uncooked rice and 6-7 cups of raw veggies. Does that make sense.

I hope I’m not making this harder than it is?

Jackfruit Biryani is a rare one. As I mentioned in my Jackfruit Curry post, jackfruit has a short season in the summer. The raw jackfruit has an even shorter season. But it makes an excellent biryani, mostly because of its meaty texture and the unique flavor.

You can use this method to make a biryani with mixed vegetables or mushrooms.

I started with cooked jackfruit. You can either do that or use raw jackfruit in the marination.

This recipe can be made vegan by ditching the ghee and leaving the curd out of the marination. But the ghee is the heart of the biryani. Just saying!

Fried onions are another aspect of the biryani I am always hesitant about. I don’t like buying the readymade fried onion. And I’m not really into a lot of deep frying myself. So I just toss the onions in some oil and slide it into the oven. So the texture and flavor are both not the same as fried onions, but they are close.

I am going to try and be as detailed as possible in the steps. Please feel free to ask for any more clarifications if needed.

Jackfruit Biryani – Summer Vegetable Biryani Recipe

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Are you still wary of trying your hand at Biryani? Don’t be. Use the same method given here to make any variation of biryani such as Potato Biryai, Paneer Biryani etc.