For those of you who have read my blog: My Cooking Background, you will know that my cooking experience is very limited, so here is my step by step account of making Tom Kerridge’s Beef Biryani proving that if a novice like me can make it, anyone can! This is from his book: Tom Kerridge’s Fresh Start: How to cook amazing food at home.

Ingredients

• 1kg/2lb 4 oz beef mince (10% fat)
• 2 tbsp. vegetable oil
• 2 onions, finely chopped
• 2 carrots, peeled and finely chopped
• 4 garlic cloves, finely chopped
• 5cm/2in piece fresh root ginger, finely grated
• 200g/70ozm madras curry paste
• 1 tsp hot chilli powder (optional)
• 500 g/1lb 20z basmati rice
• 1.5 litres/2 1/2 pints beef stock
• 200g/7oz courgettes, finely chopped
• 200g/7oz green beans, cut into 2.5cm/1in lengths
• 200g/7oz broccoli, cut into very small florets
• 200g/70z frozen peas

How Did I Get On?

The very first thing I had to do was to put the minced beef on a baking tray and place in the oven for 40 minutes, breaking it up with a wooden spoon every ten minutes, so you need to factor that time in for when you want to eat it.

Whilst the mince is cooking, you can use the time to chop up all the ingredients and as you can see there were quite a few, so that takes a little bit of time.

Once that is all done you can then start on the recipe.  You put the onions into a pan (it says to use a saucepan but I used a large non-stick frying pan) and fry them off until they soften. I put the pan of beef stock (1 1/2 litres) for the basmati rice on at this time as well.

You then add the carrots and after that, the garlic and ginger. I cheated and didn’t use a garlic clove or ginger root, but used the paste instead.  You then add in the Madras curry paste.

Time to add the roasted mince, courgettes, green beans, cauliflower and broccoli. Tom doesn’t mention putting the rice in at this stage, but the clue is when he says, ” Put a lid on the pan and simmer for 8–10 minutes, until the rice and veg are cooked and the liquid is all absorbed.”  So I guessed it must go into the frying pan at this stage.

My mince was a little bit well done, maybe because I have a fan oven it didn’t need to be in there for the full 40 minutes?

I didn’t make the raita from the recipe, instead my husband made his own version with Greek yoghurt, mint and cucumber. The final stage was to add the peas and cook until they were tender.

And there you have it, a homemade beef biryani – with shop bought naan bread, onion bhajis and samosas and of course, no Indian meal is complete without a Cobra to drink!

Thoughts:

This was a tasty meal and very filling. The recipe was enough for four people, but I think  it would easily feed more than four, especially if you have naan bread, etc., like we did and if there are any leftovers this meal can be frozen and enjoyed another time:

To freeze, allow to cool, then freeze. Before cooking, defrost fully in the fridge overnight. Add a splash of water and cover loosely with foil, then reheat in an oven preheated to 200C/180C Fan/Gas 6 for 30 minutes, or until hot right through.

There is some preparation to do before you get to the cooking, (cooking the mince and chopping the vegetables) but once this is done, the actual cooking of the meal takes about half an hour.