Beef Biryani - A One Pot Electric Pressure Cooker Recipe

I really cannot tell you enough how much I adore my electric pressure cooker.... It's revolutionised my kitchen..... My old stove top pressure cooker has long gone. The electric one is SO much better. 

It's silent. The heat on the stove doesn't need adjusting. It automatically seals when it gets to pressure. It keeps warm after cooking has finished.....

Basically, I can go and get on with ANYTHING else I fancy in the house and just let the pressure cooker simply get on with it..

I'll be honest - I have two. I have one at home and one at work ! I use the one at work for homemade soups for lunch (given I often end up feeding staff too), casseroles etc. I waxed on about them so much that my mum and my best friend now have them too and I believe love theirs as much as I do mine.

First - a little word about cooking rice in a pressure cooker.

Cooking rice and pulses is so quick and easy in the pressure cooker. I often cook just rice to serve alongside something else.

If you are just cooking rice, use 1 cup of WASHED, long grain rice. Add a little salt, a tiny dribble of oil (to prevent foaming) and 1.1/2 cups of water. Bring to pressure and cook for 12 minutes for perfect rice. 

If you haven't washed the rice first, there will not be enough water. I don't wash it after cooking and there will be no liquid left to drain.

I never cook less than 1 cup of rice in my pressure cooker. Always make sure it's at least 1/5th full and never more than 1/2 full with rice / pasta / pulses to allow for expansion. Of course - you can cook far more rice than one cup if you wish to - just use the 1:1.1/2 ratio of rice to water.

For this recipe, as there is already liquid in the pot - I don't add as much water....

This recipe is enough to feed 4 people. If you have a 6ltr electric pressure cooker, there is enough volume in the pot to double this recipe if required.

Ingredients :

500 > 600g stewing beef ( I like skirt as a cut)

150g greek or thick yogurt

1.1/2 tsp salt

2 tsp garam masala

3 cardomom pods (cracked open - I use the bottom of the jar !)

3/4 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp turmeric

2 heaped tsp chilli powder

2 tsp grated ginger

1 tsp crushed garlic

1 cup milk

1 cup long grain rice

2 medium onions

handful of fresh coriander

For this recipe, the meat really needs to marinade for at least a couple of hours or overnight (if you have time) to infuse the flavours.

It's very simple. Take all the spices, garlic, ginger, yogurt plus 1 tsp of the salt and mix with the beef. Set aside in the fridge for at least a couple of hours.

When ready to cook, finely chop 1 onion. Turn on the electric pressure cooker. If it doesn't have a brown function, just set it to 15 mins on any cooking section and cancel it when you are done

Add a tablespoon of oil and add the chopped onion. After a minute or two, add the marinaded meat and brown for a few minutes to enhance the flavour. Add in 150mls of boiling water and then bring to pressure for 30mins. If I was using chicken instead of beef, I'd just cook it for 10 mins instead of 30. Skirt is a tough, stewing cut of been but very tasty - if I was oven cooking skirt, I'd give it a good 3 hours to get it as tender as this !

When the 30 mins are up, wait 5 mins for the pressure to drop before carefully releasing any excess steam. Open the pressure cooker and add the 1 cup of washed rice and 1 cup of milk.

If you like coriander, finely chop the stalks and add these now. Reserve the leafy green tops as garnish. Give a good stir and replace the lid. Reset the cooker to cook for 12 minutes.

With about 5 mins left to go, finely slice the remaining onion. Fry in some oil until golden and crispy (almost over-done).

As soon as the beeper on your oven goes, carefully release steam. As we know there is very liquid left, it is safe to do so and won't spurt liquid out the vent (soups etc need to be left to drop pressure naturally before opening).

The biryani may initially look a bit wet - but inside about 60 seconds, the excess moisture will soon evaporate off.

Serve dressed with crispy fried onions and leafy, fragrant coriander.

Sarah-Jane Nash - www.siliconemoulds.com - March 2015

Beef and Red Wine Casserole With Cheesy Leek Scone Topping

The holiday shut down is over and it's back to work tomorrow. Time for one last slow cooked meal. 

Apologies for the dire photo. The lighting is DREADFUL in our kitchen at home and taking photos of anything indoors in the evening is next to useless.

This is easily enough to serve 4 - 5 adults, so we'll be having reheats tomorrow and probably Tuesday too !

For the casserole

500g braising steak

600g carrots

2 large onions

1 large parsnip

250g mushrooms

4 tablespoons of flour

1/2 tsp cracked black pepper

3/4 tsp salt

500ml beef stock (water plus two stock cubes)

300ml red wine - I used Merlot

1 heaped teaspoon of Colemans English Mustard

1 heaped tablespoon dried oregano

4 tablespoons (about 80 > 100g) tomato puree

Toss the meat in the flour and brown all over. Set aside and cook the veg for a few minutes with a little liquid, followed by the onions and mushrooms. Add the stock, wine, herbs, mustard, tomato puree, seasoning plus any remaining flour and cook at about 140deg C fan oven in a covered container for about 1 hour. Remove the lid and cook for a further hour.

For the scone topping

315 g self raising flour

1tsp baking powder

1 leek (chopped, sweated in a pan with butter and cooled a little)

150g grated cheese

3 tablespoons olive oil

1 beaten egg

270ml milk

Add dry ingredients together followed by wet. Mix until just combined. 

When the casserole has cooked for a minimum of 2 hours, remove from the oven and spoon dollops over the top of the casserole. Return to the oven at 180deg C Fan for 15 > 20 minutes until done.

Beef Suet Pudding - A British Winter Classic

A rich and luxurious beef steak suet pudding. Easily enough to feed 6+

I'd never made one of these - but it's easier than it looks. A pressure cooker drastically cuts down cooking time !

Recipe

For the filling (and enough to also do a steak pie !)

1kg shin beef (cubed)

all purpose flour

2 cloves of garlic, crushed / chopped

150g pickled onions, drained and sliced

1 > 2 medium onions, finely sliced

150g sliced mushrooms

2 sticks celery (finely sliced or small diced)

1 tsp ground black pepper

1 tsp thyme

1 tbsp black treacle

2 tsp marmite (or vegemite)

3 beef stock cubes

1 heaped tsp of english mustard

30g grated parmesan

Generously toss the cubed shin beef in flour until totally covered and fry in a little oil to brown in batches until starting to go golden on the outside. Set aside. Gently cook the garlic, celery and onion for a couple of minutes, before adding the onions, pickled onions, and mushrooms to the pan.

To approx 1pint of boiling water, dissolve the stock cubes. Stir in the pepper, thyme, treacle, mustard and parmesan. Pour over the meat / onions. Give it a good stir and cover with a tight fitting lid. Leave to gently simmer on the hob for a couple of hours, checking occasionally. More water can be added if needed, but we’re looking for a thick and luxurious gravy at the end before taking it off the heat.

To make the suet pastry

150g beef suet
300g self raising flour
1tsp dried mixed herbs
1 > 2 tsp baking powder
approx 200mls cold water.

Mix the dry ingredients together.  Combine the ingredients together with cold water – just enough to bind and bring together. I also added a couple of tsp of dried mixed herbs

Take a pyrex glass pudding bowl and butter the inside generously.

Reserve about 1/3 of the pastry dough. Roll the rest out to about 5 or 6mm thick on a silicone work mat (stops it sticking to the work tops !) and use this to line the pudding bowl. There should be enough to allow for a small overhang. Rest / chill in the fridge for approx 20 mins.

Fill the pudding bowl to within about 30mm of the top, don't put in too much of the gravy ! Roll the remaining dough and place this over the top of the meat and seal using a pastry brush with a little water. Make sure to leave a gap of about 25mm / 1" from the top of the bowl to allow for expansion

Cover with some greaseproof paper and foil. Put a pleat in the middle to allow for expansion. I used an elastic band to hold this in place whilst I tied it with string.

Put about 3" of water in the bottom of a pressure cooker. Place a trivet on the bottom and a bowl on the top. Cook at high pressure for approx 1 hour. Alternatively, this can be steamed in around 2.1/2 hours.

Carefully remove from the pressure cooker or steamer when cooked. Remove foil and allow to sit for approx 10 mins to crisp up and retract a little before turning out. Additional reserved gravy can be poured over the top if required.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I can’t believe about 2 weeks have already passed since Oliver and I made this. The time has simply flown by ! It’s that time of year when I work so much that one day rolls into the next without me noticing. There is just SO much work to be done.......

Bed time is normally around 4am and I’m staggering back to my feet around 7am. For the most part, I cope with it - but every 10 days or so my body says no which results in a twelve hour or more straight of seriously deep sleep. I swear that during that time, I would be totally oblivious if a bomb had gone off and trying to wake me is totally pointless. Oliver will vouch for that ! Thankfully, it’s normally on a weekend when my husband is still around in the mornings.

I’ve had one of “those” nights and thankfully rather refreshed. Bright enough in fact to catch up on some well over due blog posting before I forget to post some of these entirely. After all, my mind is not what it was. I could be crazy, or senile – but thankfully it’s much more likely to be down to tiredness.

A week ago, one of Oliver’s little friends was having a birthday party at an indoor play centre. Feeling guilty that during the winter months Oliver (like me) has a non-existent social life, I decided to pull him out of nursery and take a couple of hours away from work to take him to Finlay’s party. Work could wait.... just a little while. After all, the world wasn’t going to stop turning just because I’d taken two hours out. We arrived about 15 minutes late. No big deal I suppose – and fairly normal for me at the moment given the hectic schedules I’ve been running to. Oliver was proudly carrying the little present and card we’d got for Finlay and was super excited about the party and seeing his friends.

Tears flowed.

Lots of them.

Bad Mummy had got it wrong. The party wasn’t today – we’d arrived a MONTH early ! No amount of apologies or chocolate could make it right. Yeah. Sometimes even chocolate is not enough to win over a kid..... Even a kid that loves chocolate.

I joke not – Oliver’s little face was STILL tripping him when I picked him up that night. I agreed to the request to make cake. I sort of made it up to him after work on the Saturday after work and took him (by special request) to the cafe at Goodies Farm shop too. He loves sitting in there and having some lunch, with a drawing book and a pile of crayons.

We had a good couple of hours the next day (last Sunday) too. I’d booked tickets months ago to take him to see “Roary The Racing Car”. We had ice cream in the city before going into the theatre. The seats we had were super – front row, right in the centre. Oliver loved it – but I can’t really say that I got into it. I think I fell asleep once or twice (was certainly on the cusp) although Oliver was rather unimpressed with Mummy for that !

By the time we got home, I realised that I’d lost my camera. It’s ALWAYS in my handbag, and I’d had it with us. That camera goes EVERYWHERE with me. I turned the car upside down. I phoned the cinema. I tried to back track where I’d been. ALL this week I’ve been looking for that damn camera and totally gutted that it was gone. I’d checked my handbag several times. Checked my laptop case, taken a pitch fork to the car. No camera. I didn’t think I’d ever see it again until I got a phone call from the cinema this afternoon. Yes, one of the staff had found a black camera left on the front row on Sunday.

My heart skipped a beat. I’d a load of photos on there of recipes I’ve not yet blogged. I’d photos and videos of Oliver I hadn’t downloaded. “Yeah, it’s a Samsung.”

Hell and damnation. Punch me why don’t you. “Mine’s a Panasonic.”

“Are you SURE ? Why don’t you come and get it ?”

I actually stopped to think. Maybe mine was a Samsung.... “Thanks – but mine’s a Panasonic”.

Nah. I’m sure that I’m sure I’m sure !

I rummaged in my handbag – searching for a couple of Neurofen to kill a migraine that was on the brew. They were in there somewhere. I needed them now. Even if they were lurking with fluff at the bottom I’d find them.

So was a black Panasonic camera.