Ingredients
Basmati rice – 500 g
Chicken – 500 g
Tomatos – 3
Fried onions – 3
Yogurt (curd) – 250 g
Biryani masala – 2 tbs
Turmeric powder – 1/2 tsp
Coriander Powder – 1 tsp
Garam masala powder – 1/2 tsp
Red chili powder – 1 tsp
Green chilies – 4
Star anise (Anasphal – Badam phool) – 1
Cinnamon stick (Dal Chini) – 1 inch
Bay leaves (Tej patta) – a few
Black paper (Kali Mirch) – 5
Black cardamom (Badi Ilaichi) – 1
Green cardamom (Choti Ilaichi) – 2
Cloves (Loung) – 5
Mace (Jayatri) – 1
Oil for cooking
Mint leaves
Coriander leaves
Pure ghee 2 tbsp
Salt to taste
Ginger garlic paste – 2 tbs
Kewra essense
Fried Onions
- Slice the onions lengthwise to a thickness of about a 2 millimeters, not very fine
- Dry them out on newspaper or under the fan
- Heat oil in a pan and simmer it down when it is hot and fry the onions in parts
- Repeat till all of them are fried and set aside
Boiled rice
- Soak the basmati rice for 15 minutes
- Rinse and wash the rice
- In a bowl bring 3.5 to 4 times the water to boil
- Add some cooking oil and salt
- Add the soaked rice
- Cook this till it is about 70 percent done, not completely cooked
- Use a wide spoon to take the rice out to strainer and drain all the water out
- The rice should all stay separated.
Marinate Chicken
- Wash the chicken pieces well and make cuts so that the marination is deep inside
- Dice the tomatoes
- Whip the curd well so that there are no lumps
- To the chicken, add
- Ginger, garlic paste
- Diced tomatoes
- Curd
- All the powder masalas
- Green chillies
- Salt
- A third portion of the fried onions
- Chopped mint leaves
- Chopped Coriander leaves
- Mix these well and set aside for 1.5 to 3 hours covered with a lid
Biryani
- In a pan, heat oil and add part of ghee
- Add all the whole masala to the heated oil
- Fry them well so that the aroma is smelt
- Add the marinated chicken in portions
- Mix it well while the flame is high
- Close the pan with lid and let the chicken cook in low flame for 12-15 mins till the chicken is tender. Keep stirring it a few times so that it doesn’t burn and stick to the bottom of the pan
- Switch the cooked chicken to a larger vessel or use the same one if it’s bigger
- Add a small portion of fried onions keeping some for final garnishing
- Add little chopped mint leaves, you’ll keep some for final garnishing
- Spread the cooked rice on top of this evenly layered. Ensure that the grains are not broken and tenderly spread
- Garnish with the oil that was used to fry the onions
- Add a little kewra essence
- Add more chopped mint, coriander leaves and fried onions
- Add two spoons of ghee
- Cook on high flame for 2 minutes and close the pan with a lid and cook for 10 mins on simmer
- The biryani is now ready to be served.
