Far-East vegetable biryani

The inspiration was Indian vegetable biryani. Except that I have changed nearly all ingredients in order to use what I had at home to make this vegan rice-less version. And that’s delicious.

For the gravy, grated onion and spices, then a paste of sesame and coconut.

Green peas, kabocha pumpkin and more onion as vegetables.

My fresh herb is shiso. There is no rice as I said, it’s sorghum, the Chinese grain (kaoliang). It’s well for biryani because it stays apart and takes a firmness comparable to a basmati rice.
I have cooked it till al dente, sprinkled with lemon juice a little oil.

Making the gravy.

Layering. First half of the grain, with shiso and saffron.

The veggie mix. Then more rice, sprinkled with olive oil. And baked 15 minutes.

From the oven. On that, fried onion, walnuts and shiso.

Mouth refresher. Well that’s a feast meal !

Mixed grill, mixed lunch, 5 minutes to cook it. The easy fusion life.

Lunch is ready ! And it’s yummy !

The full menu. You need to start 40 minutes before, but that takes 3 minutes. Fill the rice-cooker.

Mixed grill.
Kabocha squash. I only cut chunks (any shape is OK as you can see). Chicken breast, I passed olive oil all over.
Place all that in the oven toaster. Then turn after 15 minutes. After, for me, that just tastes great. I didn’t even add salt. Roasting is a magic flavor enhancer.

Mixed veggies, greens and salad.
Take from the fridge. Kimchi, shiso leaves. A little kimchi everyday brings vitamins, probiotics, fibers and color on the table. Well, I fall in that addiction every Winter.

Mixed rice.
Take from the rice-cooker. Brown rice mixed with sorghum (kaoliang, takakibi). On top, black sesame, powdered. The taste is not very different from rice but it’s more crunchy and the round shape is funny.

Sorghum stories… (trying to clear my confusions about ingredients)

It’s an ingredient I sometimes use.

Well the bicolor sorghum has 2 names :
Japanese : Takakibi タカキビ（高黍）
Chinese : Kaoliang 高粱
That’s the same grain. I believed they were a different plant…
If you see the same Chinese characters, clean your glasses, the second is different…, yes, they probably used to be similar and were changed. Now both can be seen in Japanese books…

Here are the pictures :

The “white” is the kaoliang and the “red” the takakibi. Yes, both where totally red and the kaoliang is more polished, but look at shape and size… as different as Uncle Ben’s and Thai jasmine rice. So variation in sorghum is as wide as that in rice…

Taste ? A little different too, but that’s not food with huge flavor. I prefer the Japanese one.
There is a difference of price too. 20. Not 20 yen per kilogramme.
I paid about the same price for both, I had 50 g in the enveloppe of takakibi-sorghum, and 1 kg in the bag of kaoliang-sorghum. LOL.

I was lost with terms… for a second reason. Sorghum is also called “morokoshi” (sorghum) in Japanese, I mean in books, not where I shop. The maize corn was later named “to-morokoshi” (Tang sorghum… ). But that was much later than Tang era, that’s because ….. my Chinese teacher explained when I was not listening, oh no, I always listen, she explained in Chinese, so sorry, I need to take more Chinese lessons to tell you.
Oh, that’s not worse than the corn/corn confusion in English.

Takakibi sorghum with white rice, here.