Vegetable Biryani

(Original recipe from BBC Food, completely mucked around with by Seven.)

Ingredients
1 cup Basmati rice
small handful peas
small handful green beans - chopped
1 medium (or several baby) carrot - cubed
1 small potato - cubed
1 tsp tomato paste (or a dollop of tomato puree)
tsp salt, red chili powder, garam masala, turmeric to taste (I got lucky just chucking things in, but start with small amounts.)
55g/2oz finely chopped onions
4 roasted chopped cashew nuts (Steal from trail mix at work, if you don't feel like buying just 4 cashews.)


Method
1. Rinse and cook the rice until just soft. Drain well. OR throw into a rice cooker and forget about it until it's time to put everything together.
2. Cube the carrot, potato, and beans and cook with peas in a saucepan of boiling water until soft. Add tomato paste, salt, chili powder, masala, turmeric and onions to the vegetables.
3. In an ovenproof dish, press half of the rice down on the bottom of the dish, spread the vegetable mixure on top of that, and top with the rest of the rice. Make sure everyting is spread evenly.
4. Sprinkle the top with chopped cashew nuts, pinch of salt and red chili powder.
5. Cover with foil and warm through an oven at 140C/275F for 15 minutes before serving.

Notes
I served this as it was, with an aloo paratha on the side (bought frozen from a local Indian store) and it was pretty good. However, it was extra delicious the next day with a bit of vegetable oil (not olive oil!) drizzled on and some Greek yoghurt on top. Yoghurt, of course, makes it not vegan.

This made enough food that Carrie and I could have had two servings each, although in the end we went with two large portions for dinner and I stole the rest for my lunch the next day.

Verdict
A good meal, very easy to make, and nice because we had all of the ingredients lying around the house already. (Enormous bags of frozen vegetables are so great.) Not my favorite of all time ever, but I'd make it again.

Carrie Says:
I liked it. I agree that it would have been nice with a little more oil to loosen things up. Just be careful with the garam masala. Seven seasoned it perfectly, but because recipes always call for so little, it is easy to want to put more. Don't. If it's any kind of decent, it is very strong and just a little is just enough.