Eggplant Biryani/Kathirikkaai Biriyani

Sunday lunch, it will always goes for something rich and definitely for a one pot meal. We have almost every sunday, biryanis prepared either with meats, seafoods or else simply with vegetables. If its comes to vegetarian briyani i'll usually go for mixed vegetables biryani, but this time for a change i prepared this wonderful looking eggplant birynai as i want to make something different from the usual ones. This eggplant biryani goes for all the spices we usually go for making non vegetarian briyanis.Biryanis, this one pot meal suits prefectly to anyone's lunch. Obviously one can carry this flavourful dish in their lunch box with a simple side dish.

Am running this month's last week's blogging marathon from today and my theme for this week is Kid's delight - Lunchbox.Next two days are going to be kid's friendly lunch box dishes and stay tuned friends. Coming to today's recipe, once cooked the eggplant chunks will gets well mixed with the spices and rice,so it will be really very hard to find out the vegetable you went for making this biryani until you reveal about the vegetable. Am sure whoever likes eggplant will definitely like this delicious biryani. A crispy fritter or a simple raita served along with this biryani makes a prefect pair and am sure you will definitely have a super filling lunch or a dinner.Check out the Blogging Marathon page for the other Blogging Marathoners doing BM#40. 

1nos Large eggplants (chopped as small cubes)
2cups Basmati rice
2nos Onions(chopped lengthwise)
3nos Tomatoes (chopped finely)
1tsp Red chilly powder
1/2tsp Turmeric powder
1tsp Coriander powder
1cup Curd
2cups Water
1/2cup Mint leaves (chopped)
2tbsp Ghee
Salt
Oil
2nos Bay leaves
3nos Cloves
1no Cinnamon stick
3nos Cardamom

Spice paste:
3nos Green chillies
2tbsp Ginger garlic paste
1no Onion (chopped)
1no Star anise
1inch Cinnamon stick
5nos Cloves
4nos Cardamoms

Soak the rice for 15 minutes,drain the water.

Fry the rice with 2tbsp of ghee in a kadai and grind the ingredients given for spice paste as thick paste and keep aside..

Heat enough oil in a heavy bottom vessel, fry the bay leaves, cloves, cinnamon stick and cardamom seeds, add in the onions and fry till they turns transculent, add the grounded spice paste and fry till the oil separates.

Now add the chopped tomatoes,cubed eggplants,saute until the tomatoes and eggplants turn mushy.

Now add the chilly powder, coriander powder and salt,fry everything well until the oil get separates.

Add the curd,2cups of water to the vessel,close the vessel with lid, bring it to boil on high flame.

Once the water startes boiling reduce the flame to low, put in the rice and chopped mint leaves, close the lid and let the rice cook..

Open the lid after 5minutes and drizzle the remaining the ghee over the top and close again the lid.

Once the rice get cooked, put off the stove..

Serve this delicious eggplant briyani with onion raita or fryums.