Biriyani!!

This is a recipie for one of my favourite dishes ever. The hot, spicy and flavourful dish has a lot of styles and varieties in which it can be made. My favourite way of making it is as a one pot dish with chicken gravy which my family specializes in and I’ll show you exactly how to make it. I’ll also include a chicken gravy recipie, which will be my next post.

Ingredients

  • Onions : 2 ct
  • Tomatoes : 2 ct
  • coriander : 1 bunch
  • chillies : 4
  • mint : 1 bunch
  • Chicken : 500 g ( I prefer skinned and smaller pieces and legs, But you can get good results with skinless large pieces as well. )
  • Basmati Rice : per preference
  • coconut milk : 1 cup ( can also be replaced with heavy cream )
  • mixed masala : get it from me ( Or you can get any biryani masala supermarkets or you can also make it by mixing and grinding a bunch of spices )
  • flavouring spices : cumin, cloves, cinnamon, bay leaves.
  • ginger + garlic paste
  • salt + pepper
  • ghee
  • curd ( yoghurt if you are not from India )
  • lemon juice
  • water ( yes, I forgot this once )
  • Rice cooker ( works best, but can be replaced with a wide pan )

Steps:

Preparation:

  • To get started, we will be cleaning and marinating the chicken. Put the chicken in a bowl, add turmeric and water. Wash it in the sink with running water for 20 seconds.
  • To the cleaned chimken add pepper, salt, chilli powder, curd and lemon juice and marinate it for about half an hour ( with this time, you can get the other stuff prepped. ) marinating it imbibes the flavour into the chicken flesh. If you have leg pieces, add a few slices with a sharp knife on the leg so that the flavour can get soaked up.
  • Next we prepare the other requirements.
    • Take the onions and slice them up into thin straight pieces.
    • The tomatoes can be chopped up into blocks.
    • For the mint, pull the leaves apart and keep them separated. you can chop them up and plant the stems to get more mint if you want
    • the coriander can be cleaned by twisting the bottom and chopping up finely.

Procedure Now that we have everything ready, we can get started with the procedure.

  • Add a bit of oil into the rice cooker and add your favourite flavouring spices into the mix. Saute them until you can smell tha aroma from the spice ( no not melange )
  • Add the onions and chillies into the mix and saute until it gets slightly golden brown, add some ginger garlic paste and saute well.
  • Add the tomatoes in, this should soak up the deep fried ginger garlic essence and start smelling good. Add in the chopped mint and coriander and saute.
  • Now comes the fun part, add your marinated chicken in and fry them for atleast 15 minutes. The timing depends on the size of your chicken pieces. Check if the pieces are well cooked and we can proceed to the next step.
  • Next we cook the rice. Take the required amount of rice and directly add it onto the cooker. Give it a good saute along with the chicken and the flavouring substances. This makes sure that the rice absorbs the essence before cooking.
  • The amound of liquid should be 1 part rice : 2 parts liquid. Here you can use the coconut milk and water mixture as liquid parts and add them to the cooker. Here, we can check if the flavour of the spices is to our liking and add required amounts of salt. If it is too bland add a bit of chilli powder and if it requires more salt add the salt.
  • Finally close the cooker and keep the heat at maximum. Once the whistle blows, turn the heat to simmer and let it cook in the simmer heat ( low heat ) for 10 more mins
    • As a replacement all of this can also be done in a rice cooker, and I have had good results from pressure cooking this.

Let the pressure escape the cooker naturally and open for some savoury Biryani. Serve with eggs and chicken curry!