Shrimp Biryani

The temperature in NY has been cool and nice this past few days so it seems like my appetite and cooking desire is coming back! I feel like I haven't cooked real food for a while so the other day, I decided to make Shrimp Biryani for the first time in my life.

When I was invited for a dinner at our Pakistani friend's house at the end of last year (Click here for that post), she made lots of dishes and one of the dish was shrimp biryani. I watched how she made it so I decided to give it a try!

She used this Biryani Masala Mix so I bought the exact same one she used. She also added lots of spices and onion, tomato, cilantro, etc.

First, I made the sauce with this mix, onion, tomato, spices such as cloves, cinnamon, cardamon, ginger, garlic etc. I was supposed to add yogurt but I didn't have it at home so I added sour cream instead.  I added shrimps at the end then the sauce is done.

Then, I layered cooked rice and the sauce with some lemon juice and cilantro. Then, I put in the oven for a while to warm it up and at the end, sprinkled with saffron with milk.

When I was layering, I thought the sauce it too little but I think it was actually perfect ratio when it came out. Also, when I tasted the sauce, it was really salty but it became perfect after layering with rice.

My husband loves Indian food so he was really happy that I made this. I hadn't been cooking much lately so I felt little bit bad for him. Hopefully, this one made up for it. This biryani was pretty spicy for me though my husband said it is perfect spiciness.

This was the first time I made biryani and I am very happy with the result. I still have lots of biryani masala mix left so I am sure that I will be making this more often.

The funny thing is that I ate leftover next day and it was not as spicy as the night before. I wonder if the spiciness goes away with the time.

Anyhow, I am happy that my appetite and cooking desire is back. Now, I have to be careful eating too much :-)