5 rencah 5 rasa : briyani anyone? ;)

Hullo and good morning....^_^

It's such a lovely day and I'm feelin' good....take a deep breath...So, what are we gonna share today? books? Hmm...maybe later. How about another recipe from 5 Rencah 5 Rasa? Hahaha...I can't help myself! :-D The show's totally had me hooked. 

Okay, lets recap first whats cooking on the show last tuesday. As always, it features five ingredients in five different recipes. The theme is Indian dish if I'm not mistaken. Chef Sherson starts the cooking by making chapati with briyani chicken. Too bad i'm a little late watching the show so I missed out the how-to. Lucky me there're still three more recipes to go.

After he has finished with the chapati and briyani chicken, he makes briyani rice. For this, the recipe as followed:

Briyani rice

• 6 cups basmathi rice (washed and drained out the water)
• 2 Tbsp ghee (i used windmill brand)
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 2 star anise (bunga lawang)
• 4 cardamom (buah pelaga)
• 1/2 cup plain yogurt
• 1 stalk lemon grass (crush a little)
• 2 pandan leaves
• 2 1/2 tsp salt
• handful of raisins
• yellow food coloring
• handful of cashew nuts

1. Heat a frying pan and melt the ghee. add in all the spices and stir until you can smell the aroma
2. Add in the rice, yogurt, lemon grass, pandan leaves and salt. Stir until the rice has mix thoroughly with the added ingredients. Remove from heat
3. Scrape everything into a rice cooker, add water as needed *as you cooked white rice*
4. While the rice is cooking, heat about tablespoon of ghee and add in the cashew nuts. Fry until fragrant then remove from heat and set aside 
5. When the rice finally cooked, let it cooled a bit before stirring in the raisins into the rice. Add a few drops of yellow and lightly stir the rice *the idea is to get spots of yellow coloring in the rice, not exactly yellow rice. but if that happens, don't worry. it still taste the same ^_^*
6. To serve, sprinkle the fried cashew nuts on top. Serves with briyani chicken and indian salad

Indian salad

• 1/2 cup plain yogurt
• 1/2 tsp garam masala
• salt
• juice of 1/2 a lime
• 2 cucumber (remove the seeds and cut into 1 inch length)
• tomato (cut into wedges)
• 1 green chili (thinly sliced)
• 1/2 of medium onion (quartered)

1. Combine yogurt + garam masala + salt + lime juice. taste accordingly 
2. Add in the rest of ingredients, stir to coat with yogurt mixture. cover with cling wrap and let chill in the fridge before serving

For the last recipe, Chai Masala (indian herb tea):

• 2 tea bags (preferably indian chai/tea)
• boiling hot water as needed
• a pinch or two garam masala
• 1 tsp sweetened creamer/condensed milk

1. Put the the bags in a big mug/ tall glass with handle
2. Pour in hot water, add in garam masala and sweetened creamer. stir quickly
3. Get another big mug and start to tarik (slightly distance the mugs. one with tea on top, the other at bottom. pour the tea into the other mug...do it two or three times till there's froth on top of tea) watch this video if you don't understand my poor explanation ^_^

making pulled tea

That's all about 5 Rencah 5 Rasa for today...Regretfully I forgot to take the pictures so please be content with just the explanation :) Don't forget to watch the show at 10 AM every Tuesday on TV3! ;)