A date with…

Since my boss at home (a.k.a sister) and a friend had ordered me to make a mutton biriyani, I thought it was important to juggle some office work and be back home on time with mutton in hand! So, yesterday, my plan was to take one of the long-distance buses to Koyambedu (which is as close a bus can reach me to my house), do some inane things around, and take an auto to the nearest meat shops (which are like 4-5 km away!) So much for my planning! But, the evening had completely other things in store! Now, don’t imagine anything interesting or romantic; those are only in the storybooks we stole and read at school (the title deliberately misleads)!

Now, back to my evening date. First, the buses…they were late; I use the plural pronoun because these buses come in bunches of 3 or 4, and then, there’s none for at least 30 minutes, which are really precious moments when you are working under a biriyani deadline! Anyway, a video coach arrived, and I tried to will myself to watch some nondescript old Tamil movies, none of which were least bit soft on the ears! As if that wasn’t enough to irritate me, a tall, dark, handsome, (sic!) 40-something tried a couple of romantic nudges only to be gawked at by a daggers-drawn-self-defense-trained tigress (and, that’s me!).

Then, it was time to be unceremoniously herded and dumped at the Koyambedu bus stop! So, time to do the inane things (what are those? Content suppressed!)! There, I try to pay my bill, but my always-loyal debit card behaves badly! So, paying off with the last penny in hand, I trudge to the nearest mutton shop to check if they have any mutton; and as expected, no mutton! Then, started the ordeal of finding an ATM! The first one identified me by name (usually, they don’t, and I tell myself that since my account is still in Delhi…some tech problem, but I was surprised by this one!), but declined to part with any money only to me! And, again, another irritant in the ATM is almost volunteering to give cash, just because one’s alone and is female (Grr! I could have killed him, but just carried on!).

And, the traffic had to also put in its bit; it jammed for a good 20 minutes, which were punctuated by calls from the boss! Finally, found my own bank’s ATMs, which were all uniformly out of service! Even then, my brain didn’t tick that it may not be my account’s problem, but the bank’s, and have saved myself some angst about technology being a conspiracy against me and funnel out all my hard-earned money from my account!

To cut a long story short, I reached home penniless and mutton-less and had to borrow money even to pay the auto! As if this wasn’t enough, a friend tries to be funny and smses, great! Now you can save money! And when I don’t reply, he gets more ‘funny’ and says, it’s not a savings account, but a forced savings account, hahaha!

Now, aren’t you guys jealous of my life?????????

Now, for those you, more interested in whatever happened to the biriyani, yes! It was made this morning. Here’s the recipe for the cooking-inclined and some pics for the graphics-inclined.

Ingredients

1 kg mutton and Basmati rice
150 gm ginger garlic paste
50 gm curd
1 bunch of mint
2 tablespoons chilli powder
1 teaspoon turmeric
2 green chillies
½ kg onions
250 gm tomatoes

Method

Marinate the mutton with some curd, ginger garlic paste (only a bit), tumeric, salt, and couple of green chillies. Leave it aside

Put the cooker on your stove and fry onions followed by ginger garlic paste and mint leaves. When the flavors are released, dunk the mutton with the remaining chilli powder and fry a little before you shut the cooker for 1 whistle. Then, open the cooker, put in the tomatoes and pour adequate water (if you take about 4 cups of rice, use about 6.5 cups of water) and check the salt (it must tasty salty). Then, put in the washed rice and shut the cooker. Keep it on high fire for 5 minutes and in sim for 5 minutes.

This is how it should appear when you open the cooker after 15-20 minutes.