Chicken Biryani - Baine Marie

Chicken Biryani – Cooked in a scientific way !!!

Ingredients:

Chicken: 3/4 kg(it depends)
Basmathi rice:2 cups
Bunch of Mint, Coriander leaves
Curry leaves- 1 sprig
Green Chilles: 10(It turns depends on ur taste)
Onion-1
Tomato-1
Bay leaf-4
Cloves-3
Cardamom-3
Cinnamon-1 inch
Nutmeg- very little
Javantri(Maze)-2 peices
(If u dont have nutmeg and Javantri,u can replace this with biryani pulav masala)
Garlic and Ginger paste -2 spoon
Black pepper-10
Turmeric powder -1 tsp
Red chilli powder 2 1/2 tsp (Preferably Gowri’s ;)
Curd -1 cup.

Method of preparation:
Marinate the chicken with Curd, turmeric,Red chilli powder(Gowri’s),1 spoon of Ginger garlic paste and salt. U should marinate overnight for better taste. The more the time u marinate the more will be the taste of Biryani.

Boil the marinated chicken as such in the cooker with water for about one whistle with 2 bay leaves. Then Separate the Chicken from water(From the cooker). U need this chicken water later.

Take a Rice cooker, pour enough amount of oil, then add about 2 bay leaves, cloves, cardamom, cinnamon. When it is fried to a light brown colour, add onions and sauté them, then add tomatoes (usually even 1/2 tomato will do). Then add a spoon of ginger garlic paste. Grind mint, coriander leaves, curry leaves in a blender. Add these greens in the Rice cooker. Then add Black pepper and Green Chillies. Fry them for few minutes. Then add the chicken and fry for sometime.

In the mean while, fry the Basmati rice in a separate pan with a spoon full of ghee, nutmeg and Javantri and 1/2 spoon of Biriyani pulav masala.( If u dont have nutmeg and Javantri, U can use about 1 and 1/2 spoon of Biryani pulav masala.).
Fry the rice for few minutes until they turn little whitish. Dont fry more.
Then add this rice in to the Rice cooker. Now for 2 cups of water rice,add 4 cups of water.

Before adding water, U should measure the Chicken water ( which u got from boiling the chicken) and add to the rice cooker. The remaining amount can be adjusted by water. Note that totally there should be only 4 cups of water , including chicken water and normal water.

Scientific approach:

The rice in the cooker needs to be half cooked. Now move them to a container that can be cooked off the Gas burner. Ensure the container is placed on a big pan filled with water for Baine Marie. This is to take advantage of the uniform controlled heating and to avoid rice being burnt in the lower half. This also ensures slow heating below 100 Degree celsius(max boiling point of water @ sea level).

Leave it for 45 min to 60 min and keep checking on the larger pan below as this will need constant refilling of water.

PS : Baine marie method needs a lot of patience and the effort is well worth when you taste your biryani now J

Cheers and happy cooking.

Next to come : Hyderabadi Chicken Biryani - Scientific approach ( layering on Biryani)

Plagiarism....is it a boon or bane !!

 Articulating a blog of a high sensitivity plaguing issue is always a chill down the spine !! I have seen this everywhere , be it music industry , software industry,university research,literature etc you name it , its there. This has been prevalent from time unknown , from our ancestors to the present gadget freaking world....but the fact of the issue is that it actually refined us to a very large extent.I believe plagiarism is fine as long it is aimed at the betterment of the object.

Although Plagiarism is defined as the uncredited use (both intentional and unintentional) of somebody else’s words or ideas , i believe i need to relate it to the software industry considering my background when i started my career.I used to be a geeky "Component Object Model" freak where the basic theory relates to the re-usability of code which i suppose even till today holds good in the software industry.I don't believe in re-inventing the wheel but i have always believed in improving on the piece which has been adopted and ensure it can provide a lot more features than before , which directly indicates the betterment.This clearly for me is the most prudent way to improve oneself and the environment around you. One needs to understand the craftiness of the end product and improve upon it in every field but also be bold enough to admit that.

To be clever when using others work is extremely important.Some tips as below to avoid plagiarism to all those university budding artists ...!!
Example while Quoting :
Quoting involves using exact words, phrases and sentences from a source, setting them off with quotation marks, and citing where the information was taken from.

Below is a passage taken from Leslie Berestein's article "Healthy or Not, the Hookah Habit is Hot," which appeared in the Janurary 27, 2003 issue of Time magazine, volume 161, issue 4.
For centuries, men in the Middle East have gathered around hookahs to puff fruit-scented smoke, talk and pass the time. In the West, however, the water pipe became synonymous with drug culture in the 1960s, an association that lingers. But in the past couple of years, the hookah has been resurrected in youth-oriented coffeehouses, restaurants and bars, supplanting the cigar as the tobacco fad of the moment.


Here is an example of what would be considered plagiarism of this passage:

Example #1
Men in the Mid East have used hookahs to puff smoke for centuries. The "hookah" has been resurrected today in coffeehouses, restaurants and bars "supplanting the cigar as the tobacco fad of the moment."
Reason why Example #1 is plagiarism:
Notice the writer of this passage liberally borrows words, phrases and parts of sentences from the Berestein passage (even quoting parts) but gives no indication of where the information came from. Even if the Berestein book is cited at the end of the paper in the bibliography, there is no indication that this particular passage came from the book. This information has been stolen or plagiarized from Berestein.

One of the acceptable examples !!

Example #2
The Middle Eastern water pipe known as the hookah has recently "been resurrected in youth-oriented coffeehouses, restaurants and bars, supplanting the cigar as the fad of the moment" (Berestein 10).

Reason why Example #2 is acceptable:
In this example, the writer cites the source using the Modern Language Associaton (MLA) style, with the author's name and page number cited at the end of the quote.

Therefore i would like to conclude my small blog with the message that "Plagiarism is in " and is the prudent way to continuous improvement as long as the sentiments are followed in the right way.

Cheers.