Instapot Vegetable Biryani

I have never loved biryani any time I've gotten it at a restaurant. However, I had been trying to come up with a new dish to make for my family and stumbled upon this biryani recipe. I made convenience changes to it and cooked it up. It was really tasty!

It did not pair well with the other dishes I had made, but was really great on its own. It has a winter/holiday taste to me, likely as a result of using cloves.

I list peas, beans, carrots, and potato for this recipe... but you can really just throw in whatever vegetables you have lying around. This is a great dish to put leftover veg into.

Ingredients

1.5 T Oil (any neutral oil is fine)

1 Bay leaf

1/4 t Cardamom, ground (or four green pods)

4 Cloves, whole

6 Black peppercorns, or ground pepper to taste

1 t Cumin seeds

1 Red onion, medium, sliced

1 Serano pepper, sliced

12 Cashews, raw, broken up a bit

2 t Ginger/garlic paste

1/3 C Green peas, frozen ok

1/3 C Green beans, frozen ok

2 Carrots, medium, peeled, thinly sliced

1 Potato, medium, peeled, cubed (~1")

1/3 C Cilantro, chopped

1/2 t Garam masala

3/4 t Salt, or to taste

1 C Rice, basmati prefered

1.25 C Water

Instructions

1. Wash/rinse rice until water turns clear. Then soak in ~2 cups of water for ~20 minutes. During this time also thaw any frozen vegetables in a bowl of water (5-10 min)

2. Drain the rice and vegetables and set aside

3. Press saute on the instapot. Once hot add oil. Once oil is heated add bay leaf, cardamom, cloves, peppercorn, and cumin. Saute for ~30 seconds as spices become fragrant

4. Add sliced onion, serano, and cashews. Cook 3-4 minutes or until onion browns

5. Add ginger garlic paste and saute for 1 minute

6. Add 1 T water to deglaze (scrape bottom of pot)

7. Add all vegetables: peas, beans, carrot, potato; as well as the cilantro, garam masala, smoked paprika, and salt

8. Add rice to pot, gently stir everything together

9. Add water, no more stirring from this point

10. Close instapot lid, cancel saute, and set manual/pressure cook mode for 5 minutes, move pressure valve to 'sealing'

11. Once finished let pressure release naturally for at least 5 minute before manually releasing the remainder

12. Open pot, fluff rice with a fork

13. Serve and eat

Notes

• Any pepper you like can be substituted for the serano. They are common where I live and provide a nice heat so I use them. Experiment with different options if you have good chili pepper options in your area. Feel free to deseed the chilis if you want a slightly milder flavor.

• Ginger/garlic paste can be made by combining ginger and garlic in a 1:2 ratio (by weight) and putting in a food processor until smooth-ish. There are ways to make it last in the fridge, that can be researched online but this quick way will work for this recipe.