My Friend Himani makes yummiest Biriyani I have ever had... Inspite of taking the recipe from her and trying many a time, mine never turns out as tasty as hers or I feel so. This Saturday with minimum of the available stuff in this here and some modification to the recipe. I made again and Lo.. it turned out really yummylicious...

Here is the Recipe with my changes in it.
VEGETABLE LAYERED BIRIYANI:

Ingredients
half a cup each of potatoes, green beans, carrots and green peas
1 cup cauliflower florets
Finely chopped Capsicum and
Fried onions and fried cashew nuts. (Cut very fine thin slice of onions longitunidally and deepfry till they are crisp)
Grind together
2-3 cloves of Garlic, one inch ginger, One cup chopped onions and two green chillies,few mintleaves and little coriander.
Ground powder
of
3 cloves
1 inch stick of cinnamon
2 teaspoon fennel seeds
2 teaspoon cumin seeds
2 teaspoon coriander seeds
1 teaspoon of freshly peeled cardamom
1 teaspoon of turmeric powder
2 teaspoons of red chilli powder (or 3-4 whole red chillies)
Basmati rice 2 cups
½ cup yogurt
a small stick of cinnamon
3-4 bay leaves
a pinch of saffron
two spoons of tomato puree
Salt to taste
Sunflower Oil/Vegetable oil

Method
Wash the rice and drain the water.Cook the rice in two batches one plain and another in saffron colour ( which will turn out slightly yellowish)
Keep them covered and hot.
In a Kadai ... add two spoons of oil/ghee,a little turmeric powder, add bayleaves, cinnamon and the ground paste. When the paste turns reddish/brown add the dry ground powder (the masala).add the vegetables (they can be parboiled before hand)
Now add the tomato puree,saffron, yogurt, and salt.Cook till it gives out an aroma.
Now both the masala and rice are ready to be layered. I prefer them layered.. If not you can put the basmati rice into this mixture and cook till the rice is done say for about 15 minutes.

Layering.

In a Deep bottem vessel ( I used the glass one as I heated the Biryani just before dinner in a Oven)Apply some Oil, and spread a layer of coloured rice,then the layer of Masala with vegerables and another layer of rice on top of it.The layering can go on .
Leave it in the preheated oven till the dinner is ready to be served.

Garnish with fresh mintleaves, coraiander leaves , fried onions and Cashewnuts.
While serving.. cut the rice longitunaly and place so that the layers are visible on the plate,

Can be served with Fresh salad or Onion and tomato Raita... or papad and pickle.

I am at loss for good pictures. Please do bear with me...
Enjoy the Biriyani and let me know how yours turned out. Would love to hear from you if you there is any other ingredient which can be added.

TIP: I used the Bombay Biriyani powder instead of the ground powder mentioned above this time , it turned out as good.

The MTR biriyani paste available in India is excellent too.. to my taste it has a too strong garlic smell and that can be overcome by frying it in ghee a bit more.