Cuisine | Vankaya Poornam (Gutti Vankaya)

Vankaya Poornam is one of the favourite dishes of Telugu community. It is a 'compulsory' traditional recipe in family functions and gatherings. Such is the popularity of this dish. There is a misconception that this dish is tedious to make and consumes lot of time. But, we can prepare this curry in less time by using groundnuts for stuffing Brinjals. We can use all kinds of small(round in shape) brinjals to make this curry.

Ingredients

Basic

• Small round brinjals – 6-8 or ¼ kg
• Chilli powder - 3 tb sps
• Turmeric powder - 1/2 tsp
• Oil - 3 tb sps
• Salt as required

For stuffing

• 1 Cup ground nut seeds
• 2 Garlic cloves (crushed)
• 1 Onion (cut it into pieces)
• 1 inch piece of ginger (chopped)
• Oil - 1 tb sp

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Directions to Prepare

1. Heat kadai, Add groundnuts, fry for 5 minutes in low flame switch of the flame, allow the groundnuts to cool and peal of the fried groundnuts and grind them to a tight paste adding ginger cloves and chopped onions by adding little water if necessary.

2. To the groundnuts paste add chilli powder, salt and coriander powder.

3. Wash Brinjals thoroughly in water. Slit them in a plus shape.
4. Divide the groundnut paste into two halves(one for stuffing and the other for gravy).Carefully stuff the groundnut paste into each Brinjals so that the Brinjals do not break.

5. Heat 3 tb sps of oil in a kadai, add curry leaves and seasoning(mustered seeds, onions, ginger garlic paste), and drop stuffed brinjals slowly. stir them for a few seconds gently and cover the pan with a lid. keep stirring occasionally and cover it with the lid again. Do this till the brinjals turn soft.

6. Remove the lid, add the remaining portion of the ground paste and little amount of water and mix gently so that brinjals do not break.
7. Raise the flame and allow the water to boil. once water has come to boil, lower the flame and cover with a lid. keep stirring occasionally. As the gravy turns thick switch of the flame.
8. Garnish with coriander and serve hot with rice.

Cuisine | Hyderabad Chicken Dhum Biryani

Ingredients

• ½ Kg chicken(cut in pieces)
• 500 grams of Basmati Rice
• 2 medium Onions (thinly sliced)
• 5 Cardamom Pods (Choti Ilaichi) make them powder
• 2 tsp.Ginger Garlic Paste (Allam Velluli Paste)
• 200 grams of Plain yogurt (Perugu)
• ½ tsp. Turmeric Powder
• 2-3 tsp. Red Chilli Powder (want to be spicy add 3 tsp)
• 2 tsp. Coriander Powder (Dhaniya powder)
• A bunch of Fresh Coriander Leaves (Kothimeera) (chopped - for garnish)
• 200 grams of Cooking Oil
• 1 Bunch of Mint Leaves (Pudina leaves)
• 1 tbsp of Salt
• ½ tbsp of Pepper powder

Directions to Prepare

1. Marinade the chicken pieces with the plain yogurt, turmeric powder, coriander powder, red chilli powder,pepper powder, Ilachi powder,ginger garlic paste and salt and keep a side for ½ an hour.
2. In a vessel cook the basmathi rice and remove it when the rice is halfcooked ( make sure to drain all the water from rice)
3. In a separate vessel fry the sliced onions in oil (till they become light brown) and pudina leaves and keep them a side.
4. Now take a vessel which is big enough. Heat the oil in that vessel and remove the vessel from stove, now put the chicken pieces, Basmathi rice,oninos and pudina leaves as layers in that vessel(one layer chichen, one layer rice, one layer oninos, one layer pudina) and put a lid on the vessel and put the lie (to prepare lie mix some amount of wheat flour and water)around the lid so that vapours can’t go out.
5. Now put the vessel on the low flame for 30-40 minutes .
6. Serve hot the Dhum biryani garnished with coriander leaves .