Slow cooker Lamb Biryani recipe

I loved the process of creating this recipe. I crossed the Spanish Rice recipe from Crockpot Lady's American blog "A Year of Slow Cooking" with Nigel Slater's quick chicken biryani from "The 30 Minute Cook", the book that taught me to cook. My husband always orders biryani in Indian restaurants and it's a dish with the meat mixed in with the rice. What you miss out on here is the side dish of sloppy, curried vegetables but you get the lamby rice with very little hassle once you've put the lid on. Authentic, no. Tasty? Oh yes, my friend.

I seem to have forgotten to photograph this in my enthusiasm for dinner. Er...whoops!

BTW, it looks like a lot of ingredients but it's actually quite quick if your spices are to hand.

Ingredients:

1 lb /  500 g lamb mince / ground lamb
1 cup / 200g brown rice
1 tin chopped tomatoes
1 onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic
1 tsp fresh, grated ginger (I get mine in a jar)
1/2 tsp cayenne
1/2 tsp cumin
1 tsp coriander seeds (or ground)
pinch nutmeg
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp turmeric
1/2 cup (150 ml) natural yoghurt, to add at end
3 tbsp raisins

Directions:

Brown your mince and pop into your slow cooker. Drain the tomato juice into a measuring jug. Make up the tomato juice to 500 ml (2 cups) with cold water. Put the tomato flesh and the diluted tomato juice into the slow cooker. Add all the other ingredients except the yoghurt, give it a good stir and cook on Low for 3 hours. Test to check it's done and stir in the yoghurt while you lay the table. We had this with fried courgettes and mango pickles.

Verdict:

This was tasty, tasty, tasty! It wasn't too spicy but gave us that Indian fix in an easy-going mid-week sort of a way. I think it would be good with some spinach and I'll try to find out how to make the vegetable side dish but this was a really acceptable meal in a single pot.