Mushroom Palao

When I saw these lovely fresh (in the vegetable shop, they were fresh) botton mushrooms, suddenly I wanted to eat Mushroom Palao. I never ate it before nor heard of it either. I wanted to cook rice and mushrooms separately and layer them like Biryani. Well I started out cooking it like biryani, but half way through changed course and became palao. read the rest of the post and you will see how.

Ingredients:
For the marinade:
Button mushrooms - 200 gms.
Curd - 1 cup
Tandoor chicken masala - 1.5 tsp.
Chilli powder - 1/4 tsp.
Salt - 1 tsp.
Ginger garlic paste - 1/2 tsp.
Onion, chopped across the grain, very fine - 1 no. 
vegetable cooking oil - 2 tbs.

For the rice:
Rice - 3 cups or 400 gms.
Onion, chopped length wise - 1 big
Ginger garlic paste - 1/2 tsp.
Cooking vegetable oil - 2 tbs.
Green chillies, slit - 1 big or 2 small
Mint leaves - handful or 1/2 cup
Shahjeera / Black cumin - 1/4 tsp.
Bay leaf - 1 no.
Cloves - 2 nos.

Method:
Marinade:
Mix all the ingredients for the marinade into whisked curd. Chop button mushrooms into thicker pieces. Mix them into curd and set it aside either in the fridge or on the kitchen counter if the weather is cool, for over an hour. I made the marinade around 9.30 am and started actual cooking at 1.30 pm. So it was a good 4 hrs.
Take a thick bottomed pan or dish. Heat the oil. Add chopped onion and fry. Separate the mushroom from the curd mixture. Keep the curd for later. Gently drop the mushroom into frying onion and cook on medium flame till they are half way done.
Rice:
Clean and wash rice and leave it in water for half an hour. I used Sona masoor rice. 
Measure out six cups of water and put it on for boiling. Drop the bay leaf into it.
I used the pressure cooker, and put it on stove. Once it was hot, poured oil in it. In the hot oil, put cumin and cloves. As they start to splutter, add chopped onion and green chillies. Add ginger garlic paste and mint leaves and stir constantly, making sure onion is not burnt. Drain water from the rice and keep it aside. When they are golden brown, add the rice and mix well. Add the salt for the rice. 
At this stage, I decided not to make biryani style but cook them all together. So, added mushrooms which were cooking in the pan, to the rice. Mixed it all well. After a couple of minutes, poured the boiling water and put the lid and cooked the rice until one whistle. 
Removed the weight after 3 minutes. 
Surprisingly the palao came out very tasty. Shared it with a guest too. 
Try it and enjoy it.