Dec 6, 2012

IHCC: December Potluck

When it came time to pick a recipe for this month's potluck w/ I Heart Cooking Clubs, I was kinda stuck.  Still nursing a Thanksgiving-induced food coma.  Pretty "meh" about food.

When in doubt, go for shrimp.

Shrimp Biryani from Madhur Jaffrey's At Home With Madhur Jaffrey


This was really good.  The spices and basmati rice smelled fantastic.

Review:
There were a few things I changed from the original recipe.  I skipped the turmeric and used ground cardamom since I don't have pods.  Added a pinch of cardamom to the shrimp in addition to the rice.  Used parsley instead of cilantro.

The shrimp were spicy, full of garlic with a hint of cumin and lemon.  But it was hard to pick out individual spices since they all blended together so well.  We all gave thumbs up.  I decided to halve the amount of rice.  I'm glad I did because (1) that would have been way too much food and (2) I think the shrimp would have been lost in the full amount of rice.



More Madhur Jaffrey @ I Heart Cooking Clubs
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Printable Recipe can be found here in it's original form

Shrimp Biryani
from At Home With Madhur Jaffrey (with changes)

1 cup Basmati rice
1 lb. medium peeled shrimp
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 tsp ground cumin
pinch of ground cardamom
1/4 tsp. cayenne pepper
Freshly ground black pepper
Salt
3 tbsp olive oil
4 tsp lemon juice
1/4 cup chopped parsley
2 pinches ground cardamom
1 1/3 cups chicken stock

Rinse the rice and drain.

Sprinkle garlic, cumin, a pinch of cardamom, cayenne, black pepper and 1/3 teaspoon salt over shrimp and rub seasonings in. Cover and set aside for about 15 minutes.

Pour oil into a heavy medium pan and set over medium-high heat. When hot, put in shrimp and stir them around for 2 to 3 minutes or until just opaque. Remove with a slotted spoon and put in a bowl. Turn off heat. Add lemon juice and parsley to bowl of shrimp. Stir to mix and taste for balance of seasonings.

Put cardamom and chicken stock into pan used for cooking the shrimp and bring to a boil, scraping bottom to release the seasonings. Add drained rice, season with salt, and bring to a boil again.

Cover tightly, turn heat to very, very low, and cook about 25 minutes. Put shrimp and accumulated juices over top of rice, cover quickly and keep cooking another minute. Turn off heat. Stir gently to mix and keep covered until needed.

9 comments:

  1. Anonymous12/06/2012

    Shrimp is always a good choice. Have to try this one. Love anything with shrimp. or rice. Bet your kitchen smelled good, too.

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  2. That's MY kind rice dish! Looks irresistible loaded with shrimps.

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  3. Ha, this was just the kind of thing I had in mind for next week's rice theme at IHCC! And I just realized I made this same recipe, but from Serious Eats, in in the spring. It was yummy and I especially liked that the rice was not as dry as you sometimes get in restaurants. Yours looks very appealing, but maybe I need rethink next week. Or not.

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  4. now this sounds so tasty, flavorsome... looks like the right amount of rice to me too, and like you, I will fiddle with the spices as needed or rather, whatever I have on hand... have a great weekend

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  5. yum yum...I love anything with shrimp in it...
    Mona

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  6. Shrimp - always great - if you had used the turmeric the colours would have been interesting. Have a great week!

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  7. Beautiful! Looks absolutely scrumptious! I need to try shrimp briyani one of these days! Shrimps and briyani are my favourites, have never had them as one dish before. Yummy!

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  8. Shrimp, lots of garlic, and rice. I think it's a great combination in any food culture! I'm all for cutting back on the rice too. You definitely don't want the shrimp to get lost in the rice.

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