Shortcut to Cooking Nasi Biryani

Don't you agree that we, Malaysians, are very lucky? Most restaurants operated by Indian Muslims (Mamak) here serve Nasi Biryani (or Briyani). We can eat it anytime of the day because some Mamak restaurants operate 24/7. 

Other than that I can also buy meal ready to eat (MRE) Nasi Briyani. My go to brand for MREs is currently Brahim’s. That is because they used to be the appointed caterer for Malaysia Airlines.  They supply it with chicken or mutton included.

MREs are great for days when I ran out of ingredients to cook or when I have to leave the house early.  It is easy to prepare to eat because I can heat it up by steaming or boiling the package in a pot of water for 8 to 10 minutes. I usually steam it over a pot of soup I am boiling for the day. I can also pour the rice with the meat into a bowl to heat up, covered, in a microwave oven for 1 1/2 minutes.

This is how it is cooked if you prefer to make it from scratch and serve it with chicken. 

You can also cook it in a rice cooker.  But, just like when you cook chicken rice in it, you should switch the power off as soon as it is cooked to avoid browning the lower layer of the rice.  Look at the number of ingredients you need to cook the rice.  I wonder if I will consider cooking it from scratch.

 These are the ingredients and steps for cooking the chicken.

I can also buy Brahim's Nasi Briyani paste to cook it with my prefered Thai white rice.

Based on the video I watched, I wonder if I will be able to use the paste to cook the chicken instead of rice.  I can cook it just like how I use their paste to cook Ayam Percik in my airfryer as follows:

I will let you know if it works.

Shortcuts for cooking a curry dish

The easiest way to make a coconut curry dish is to buy ready made chilli paste for curry. That will eliminate the process of pounding chillies with the many other ingredients that will make the curry flavourful. However, check the packaging to see that it has cooking instruction for making the curry dish. I used to get my homemade chillie paste from my aunt.

Whenever I am not sure about how to use a ready made sauce or paste at the sundry shop I usually go to, I will check with the store owner. If the store owner cannot help me, I can check out the brand online. When I shopped online at TESCO before it became Lotus, I noticed that they usually include the cooking instruction for the paste I am interested in, which they had extracted from the packaging itself. 

Once you are able to find the chillie paste you like, all you need to add to it is the curry powder for meat or fish, based on what you are cooking, and santan (coconut milk). This is the curry powder I use for cooking fish curry.  It is from my cousin's factory in Melaka.

You can also add to your curry dish any of the following ingredients:

-potato (our family’s favourite choice)

-lady’s finger

-long beans

-cabbage

-tomato

For the santan, I prefer to buy the packet version.  It can keep longer so that I can cook my curry dish anytime I want to as long as I have curry powder and chillie paste in the fridge.

Recently, I discovered an even easier way to make curry. These are the ingredients noted on the packaging:

As you can see from the list, coconut milk is already included in the paste. This is how you can use the curry paste to cook chicken curry.

This is how the Brahim’s chicken curry sauce should look like after it is cooked but I prefer it with more sauce. So, I usually add extra water or santan to the pot. If it is not salty enough, instead of salt, I add soya sauce.

However, I prefer to eat their MRE (meal ready to eat) version which is even easier to prepare. I just put the packet into a pot of boiling water and wait for 3 minutes. I am drawn to this brand because I found out that their rice and dishes are served to airlines passengers too.

I usually serve it in a glass bowl so that if there are any leftovers, I can keep it covered in the fridge. As my glass bowl is microwave safe, the following day, I can just pop it in the microwave oven to heat up for about 2 to 3 minutes. 

As I am not an adventurous eater aka fussy, whenever my family travel overseas for a holiday I usually bring along a mini cooker, instant noodles and some of Brahim’s MREs. I also bring along metal containers to store the food heated up to eat. They are great for days when we do not feel like eating the local food over there or when we have hunger pangs because of the time difference.

MREs with curry or chilli sauce were the best dishes we travelled overseas with as we could also eat it with bread which we could easily pinched from the buffet spread of the hotels we stayed at. 

If you cannot buy ready made curry paste, this is how you can make your own.

Once your curry paste is ready, you can start cooking your curry dish. I prefer to use chicken and potato in the dish. *Note that you only need 2 stalks of lemongrass cut in half. The white portion for making the curry paste while the green portion is for cooking the curry. However, if you are able to buy the curry paste, you can omit adding it to cook this curry dish.

I found this recipe from The Burning Kitchen. Check it out. The mother and daughter team, Bee Leng and Melissa, provides lots of photos and tips which you will find useful.