Biryani with Onions

Let me set the scene for you: It was a grim Sunday afternoon, there was no food in the house, and I was probably hungover. But even under these difficult circumstances one must still clothe and bathe oneself, answer the telephone and make dinner. So in an effort to make do and mend, loose lips sink ships and I want YOU for the US Army, I scoured the cupboards and amazingly found the ingredients to make the dish below without too much effort or any substitutions.
Now, I watch The Simpsons, I know very well that you don't make friends with salad, but I also remember that when I was not too much younger, there was certainly a time when we didnt have meat every day. In fact, in my day! meat was considered something of a special treat, you ate what you were given, and if there were any leftovers they would appear in front of you at every subsequent meal until you stopped being such a little madam and ate up all your supper!
So with that in mind I was entirely prepared to enjoy the vegan friendly, economical, lowfat, simple Biryani with Onions.

To be honest, I am never really convinced by Westeners doling out recipes for any kind of ethnic food, the locals are always bound to do it better, right? However this is quite a handy book to have, who needs authenticity when you can have the essence (by that I mean semblance, not a real taste) with only a fraction of the calories! This text doesn't seem to have an author, by the way, so I'm instilled with even more confidence in this thing I'm about to cook and eat.

OK, here's the stuff. I wonder if the contestants of Masterchef were presented with this sorry collection they would be able to come up with anything on a par with what I have coming my way. Notice the super cheap Tesco peas, the stock I DIDN'T make as suggested on page 31, the cauliflower I chopped up to conceal the mouldy bits I had to hack off. The bayleaf is from our garden, but I doubt it will be enough to redeem this dish.

Presto chango and everything goes in the pot. At this point I guess there are a few people who will go 'mmmmmmmmm, a scene to gladden the heart and set my mouth a-watering!'. I'm not too jazzed about having this to eat yet, so I'll just keep calm and carry on and while I'm on the World War II slogans, how about 'Save kitchen waste to feed the pigs!' - Thanks!

Result: Two main observations here, firstly something entirely un-Indian should have suggested itself to me by the conspicuous absence of chilli from the ingredients list. This doesn't taste like any Biryani I've had before, but you can just about 'sense' the other spices. Which is actually the second point, you are told to fish out and discard the cinnamon, cardamon and cloves - how are you meant to do that short of shoving both mitts in and digging around for the 20 or so offending inedibles? I decided not to bother devising a method 'What is this dish called,' asked my brother 'Twigs?' HA HA, bring your dry sarcastic wit to my next dinner party!
If I had to describe this meal, I would call it - savoury (despite the sweet onions on top which were actully really nice), but that would diminish the most important thing about it - look at how it looks exactly like it's supposed to! This is the first recipe I've followed that provides a picture to aspire to, so as far as I'm concerned, I've done it PERFECTLY!!!