Nasi Briyani Aceh (Biryani Rice from Aceh)

Rice is the main staple crop of the majority in Indonesia. It is the food most loved in this part of the world. Rice touches so many aspect in our life; shapes not only our diet but also our tradition, landscape, beliefs, etc. So, do we like to eat rice so much because the taste of it or it because thats the ingredient most exposed to us? Frankly, it does not really matter. All I know is we do have gazillion wonderful recipes for cooking rice. 

I adore rice. Medium grain rice to be precise. I have people in my perimeter that consider me as a boring person as I eat rice (almost) two times a day. If only they know how I cook my rice, I think they will change their perception of me. I had a wee difficulties of finding rice when I arrived in Qc. Someone close to me casually suggested me to replace rice with quinoa because its 'the same'. I gave him the stink-eye for a whole week for this comment..

Indonesian cuisine has many foreign cultures influences, from Chinese to Middle East, and this is what make our cuisine so awesome (does this sentence make me sounds like a patriotic foodie?), with one single main ingredients, in this case is rice, we have tons of recipe variations. Today I am cooking a recipe for rice with heavy influence of Indian cuisine; nasi Briyani from Aceh. 

Nasi briyani Aceh is Indonesian version of biryani rice from India and it is very flavorful. In Jakarta, the lovely jungle of beton where I grew up, you can only find this dish at some particular restaurants. Altho it  uses more than a half dozen different kind of spices, it is not that complicated to cook, really. Lets give it a try!

Ingredients:
1 cup of basmati rice, uncooked
350 gr of beef, bite size diced
1 cup of milk (use the same size of cup for the rice)
1 cup of water (use the same size of cup for the rice)

1 onion thinly sliced

5 cardamom

5 cloves

1 star anise

1/2 tsp fennel seeds

1/4 tsp cumin

1 tsp nutmeg powder

1 tsp white pepper powder

1/2 tsp turmeric powder
salt to taste (I used salty beef broth powder)

3 tbsp oil

1/2 cup of dried raisins
a handful of cashew nuts (I didn't have it at the moment)

Cooking steps: 

1. In a wok, sauté onion with oil until it wilts and become transparent,
2. Add cardamom, cloves and anise star, continue cooking until these spices aroma fills up your kitchen,
3. Turn the heat to medium and add meat, fennel seeds, cumin, nutmeg powder, white pepper powder, and turmeric, continue cooking until the meat turns pale,
4. Add salt, water and milk, mix gently and bring to boil, 
5. Add the rice, mix gently once again and put the cover on the wok, let it continues cooking for 10 minutes,
6. Open the cover and mix gently once again, your rice supposed to be soft enough by now (almost well cooked), keep the wok open and continue cooking until the rice absorbs all the liquid (around 10 minute), mix once in awhile,
7. Once the liquid is all absorbed and the rice is well-cooked, turn the heat off and let it sits to finish evaporating,
8. Et voila, its done. Sprinkle dried raisins and cashew nuts before serving. 

Happy cooking!!

PS: the basmati rice that I use takes 20 minutes to get cooked, and the ratio for the water is 1:2. One part of rice, two part of water. So basically adjust it with the way you usually cook your rice, time-wise and liquid wise.