Slow-Cooker Beef Biryani

Worked pretty well, but we need to work on the timing - when do you add the cauliflower?
Ingredients

• 2½ lb beef chuck, cut into 1" to 1½" cubes
• 1 onion, finely chopped
• 4tbsp fennel seeds
• 1tsp cumin
• 1tsp cardamom
• 3tsp coriander
• ½tsp turmeric
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1" lobe of ginger, minced
• 1c yogurt
• 1c water
• 1 cinnamon stick, broken in half
• ½c raisins (golden, preferably)
• 3 carrots, peeled and chopped roughly
• 1 head cauliflower, broken into florets
• basmati rice (about 2.4c), washed

To a sauté pan, add onion, beef, fennel, cumin, cardamom, coriander, turmeric, garlic, ginger, and some oil.  Cook over medium heat until the beef is browned - about 10 minutes.  Add everything to a slow cooker along with the cinnamon stick, yogurt, and water.  Stir well to coat, then turn on low.  In one hour, add the carrots.  In another two hours from the addition of the carrots, add the cauliflower.  In 3-5 more hours from the addition of the cauliflower, fish everything out with a slotted spoon and toss with the raisins.  Measure the amount of liquid you have left in the slow cooker.  We had 3 cups.  To a rice cooker, add 1 cup of rice and 2tsp salt for every 1.25c liquid.  Add the liquid and cook until the rice is done.  Toss with beef and vegetables.  Serve.

Thoughts: The cauliflower was actually way overdone, so don't do it quite like we say above.  Probably the beef should cook about 8 hours total, the carrots about 6 hours, the cauliflower about 3.  Also, we should have salted the beef & vegetable mixture (maybe 1.5tsp salt) and added LESS salt to the rice (about 1tsp per cup of rice).  Claire disagrees about the rice.  I would have added a few more raisins, too.

Overall, I think this wasn't our best Biryani ever, but the beef was very tender, so that was good.  Cooking with a slow cooker is fun, but we're still really new to it.  We liked taking the drippings from the slow-cooker and doing the rice with that.  I also wouldn't add the yogurt next time, probably.  Claire suggests doing the yogurt but not the water.

We might toast the spices in oil first the next time, too.

This was easy, though, so we'll probably work with it a little.

Disaster Index: 3/10, but we'll try it again