Fidelity's country head in India, Keshav Gaur makes dum biryani which is yum.
If you want to eat finger-licking good biryani, step into Keshav Gaur’s kitchen. Gaur, who is the country head of Fidelity Business Services, knows his food well — that includes cooking as well as eating the very best. Recounts Gaur, “From childhood you eat good food and then you forget about it. My mother’s cooking,” he says, “was superb.
As a child I would also see my father trying his hand at cooking and he was quite good too.” The hostel food, when Gaur was doing his MBA, was “horrible” and eventually the reason why he turned to cooking. His initial forays in cooking were simple. “I used to make Maggi. Now I have graduated to fancier stuff in the kitchen,” he says.
Instead of relying on recipe books, Gaur prefers to watch an entire dish being cooked, especially since he believes that the spices one adds can change the overall flavours in a dish. “A lot of my friends who head companies,” he says, “are also very keen chefs.” Adds Gaur: “My dream is to build my own restaurant where people can be invited on weekends to come and eat whatever the chef has made. And the chef could be some CEO gourmet cook. I hope this dream does get translated into reality.”
Gaur is as methodical in the kitchen as he probably is at work. All the ingredients are kept ready and he goes through the entire process of preparing and cooking with swiftness and ease, without missing a step that would make even a seasoned chef blush with shame. Says Gaur, “When I am cooking I like to keep the kitchen counter top clean at all times.” Gaur keeps his word as he makes both a vegetarian and a non-vegetarian version of the biryani in a spotless kitchen.
If cooking makes Gaur enter the kitchen at least once a week, the search for good food is also an on-going process.
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“I really like eating at dhabas,” he says. “There is Sumer Singh’s dhaba on the highway and very often I just call up the owner and drive down for a great meal,” he reveals. He also likes to watch food being cooked in dhabas. If roadside dhabha food is something that Gaur craves for often, the food that he likes to come home to, after traveling anywhere in the world, is dal-chawal. “There is nothing to beat a good meal of dal-chawal,” he says, adding, “No matter where I am in the world, I like to eat dal-chawal with my hands.”
That explains why he makes such finger-licking good biryani.
FAVOURITE RECIPE
DUM BIRYANI
1 kg chicken, cut into 12 pieces
750 gms of paneer, cut in one inch by one inch cubes for the vegetarian biryani
Salt to taste
5-6 medium size green chillies, crushed
7-8 green cardamom, peeled and crushed
Handful of chopped coriander leaves
1 tbsp ginger garlic paste
1 1/2 tbsp cumin seeds
7-8 cloves
1/2 tsp each of jaiphal and javitri powder (mace and nutmeg )
1 full lemon juice
300 gm curd
1/2 kg partly cooked basmati rice (let the rice come to a boil and then drain the water)
2 tbsp of desi ghee
4 medium size onions, chopped and fried till brown.
1/2 tbsp saffron, soaked in 3 tbsp of milk
In case of paneer biryani the cubes need to be fried such that the edges turn brown
Wash the chicken. Use a handi to cook. Put the chicken/fried paneer in the handi. Add all the above mentioned ingredients with the curd being the last. Now mix well with hand. Once done put the partly cooked rice on top and spread it evenly such that it covers the chicken/fried paneer mix.
Then take the saffron soaked in milk and spread it over the rice. Cover the handi with a lid and seal it well with dough. Put on high flame for five to seven minutes and then on simmer for 20 minutes. Do not open the lid for 15 minutes after switching off the flame. Once opened gently mix the rice with the chicken or paneer and serve garnished with fresh chopped coriander leaves.
You can use a thick bottom pot in case a handi is not available.
