How to make Ulava Charu Vegetable Biryani

For the Ulava Charu

• Wash and rinse the horsegram couple of times. Make sure the lentil is clean as you will be using the same water for boiling it.
• Soak in 2 cups water overnight or at least 8 to 9 hours.
• Pressure cook with a little salt and turmeric powder for 3 whistles or until cooked.

Preparing the Rice

• Wash and soak the basmati rice for about 20 minutes and drain the water.
• Heat the ghee in a saucepan, add the mint leaves, bay leaf, salt and add the drained rice.
• Saute for a couple of minutes.
• Next, add 1 cup of the Ulava Charu, 2 cups of water. Bring to a boil.
• Simmer till the rice is cooked well.
• Keep the rice over a tawa for 5 mins for the rice to settle well.

Preparing the Masala

• Prepare the vegetables and keep it ready.
• Heat a nonstick pan with ghee and cooking oil, saute the green chilies, curry leaves and bay leaf.
• Next, add the onions and whole spices and ginger garlic paste. Saute well.
• Now, add the peas, sliced carrot, add the water from the boiled horsegram and simmer to cook till the vegetables are cooked.
• Add all the spice powders and combine everything well. Simmer till the water evaporates.
• Next, add the boiled horsegram and continue to cook till you get an almost dry masala.

Layering the Biryani for Dum Cooking

• Spread some ghee in the pan or pot in which you are going to set the dum. I used the same nonstick pan that I cooked the vegetable masala. I simply removed to a bowl, greased the bottom with ghee.
• On the ghee, spread rice evenly. Sprinkle few drops of ghee.
• Then, sprinkle some chopped mint and coriander leaves.
• Next, spread the biryani masala evenly.
• Then, layer another layer of rice.
• Cover this biryani tightly and cook this over a low flame on a tawa for 10 minutes.

For Serving

• Once the biryani is ready, fluff it up well so that the masala is well mixed with the rice.
• Normally with layered biryanis, the masala and rice layers are separate. However, with this, it will taste best if you fluff it up well.
• I served this with Gutti Vankaya Kura.