I love mushrooms and I love rice and I love tasty dinners, but most of all I love a nice one-pot recipe that doesn’t take too much time to make and pretty much looks after itself. This one-pot mushroom and bay biryani from Anna Jones’ a modern way to eat ticks all the boxes.

The mushrooms are gently flavoured with cinnamon, cardamom and bay, while the biryani has a bit of kick with the addition of a couple of chillies, blitzed with coriander and tomatoes. After frying off the onions and biryani paste, the mushrooms are added, quickly followed by the rice and a boiling water, then left to 10-15 minutes before the rice is fluffed up and sprinkled with grated lemon zest.

While the recipe serves six people, Anna kindly dishes up a delicious idea for using up any leftovers – fry until crisp and serve topped with a fried egg and more coriander – so I did just that. Two meals for the price of one, can’t be bad, eh?

The verdict from the husband for one-pot mushroom biryani part I: ‘Nice, if there are any leftovers I’ll take them to work….’ Er; oh no you won’t, we’re having it for tea again tomorrow…

The verdict from the husband for one-pot mushroom and bay biryani part II: ‘That was delicious.’ And I have to agree.

Ingredients

For the mushrooms

• 500g of mushrooms, roughly chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, peeled and roughly chopped
• a thumb-sized piece of ginger, peeled and roughly chopped
• 1/2 tsp ground turmeric
• 1/2 tsp ground coriander
• 1/2 tsp ground cumin
• 2 tbsp oil
• 1/2 bunch of coriander (leaves picked and roughly chopped)
• sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

For the biryani

• 300g basmati rice
• ghee or oil for cooking
• 2 onions, peeled and finely sliced
• 3 bay leaves
• 5 cloves
• 5 cardamom pods, split
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 1 tsp cumin seeds
• 1-2 green chillies
• 1/2 bunch of fresh corander
• 2 tomatoes chopped
• 1 lemon

Method

1. Put the mushrooms into a bowl, add all the other mushroom ingredients and a good pinch of salt. Put to one side for half an hour or so.
2. Next, soak the rice in fold water. Get a large pan on a medium heat and add a tsp of ghee or oil. Add the onions and fry for 10 minutes, until just golden, then add the bay leaves, cloves, cardamom pods, cinnamon stick and cumin seeds and fry for another couple of minutes.
3. Blitz the green chillies, coriander and tomatoes in a food processor and add to the pan. Cook for 5 minutes, until most of the moisture has evaporated, then add the mushrooms and cook on a high heat for 5 minutes, until they have softened a little.
4. Boil the kettle,. Drain the rice and rinse in cold water, then add to the pan and gently stir to fry the rice a little – be gentle, you don’t want to break up the grains. Now add boiling water from the kettle until it is 1cm above the level of the rice. Put the lid on and cook the whole lot on high for 2 minutes, then turn the heat down and cook on low for 5 minutes without taking the lid off. Turn off the heat, leave the lid on a let it sit for 10 minutes.
5. After 10 minutes, take the lid off and fluff the rice with a fork. Grate over the zest of a lemon and squeeze over the juice.