Above you see the first actual picture of a dish I cooked for my kids, who absented themselves from this project as soon as they grokked the amount of vegetables involved. You can see the saffron and cashews and, on the right side, all of the tasty herbs and spices - garlic, ginger, cumin seeds, coriander, ground cloves and cinnamon sticks. The frozen peas didn't make it into the glamour shot because they just weren't photogenic.
Here is a verbatim transcript of the conversation that took place in my kitchen while I was sauteeing the vegetables and spices:
OSCAR: (suspiciously) Something smells odd down here.
IKE: (impassioned) Let's get out of the room!
OSCAR: (more suspiciously) Is that the biryani?
IKE: Cough! Cough! (Imagine the kind of stagy, exaggerated cough a vehement non-smoker might emit if somebody sat down on the other end of a park bench and fired up a Parliament)
Exeunt boys.
So despite the fact that the final result of the project was a healthy dish comprised of layers of saffron-infused rice and gently, aromatically spiced vegetables topped with a tangle of caramelized onions, the kids were having none of it. While my fabulous husband enthusiastically scarfed down about half of the recipe, the boys were willing to forego dessert in order to avoid eating my vegetable biryani. I liked it - cooking with saffron is always a revelation. A tiny half-teaspoon turned the entire dish canary-yellow and perfumed our entire house with its aroma. It is as much a scent as a flavor, and I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that the boys failed to appreciate a dish that featured saffron as its primary spice. So I won't be cooking biryani again, because I have a primal aversion to sitting at the dinner table and watching my children reject my cooking. Bah! Humbug!
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