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Ingredients required
Mix all of the above ingredients and let the chicken marinate for 6-12 hours, more the better.
* 8 cloves
* 1 Cinnamon stick
* 6 green Cardamoms
* 2 Bay leaves
* 1/2 Teaspoon shahi jeera (caraway seeds)
* a few pinches grated nutmeg and mace each
* 1 Teaspoon Coriander powder
* 1 Teaspoon red Chili powder (to taste)
* 5-6 Tablespoon of chopped fresh mint
* 2-3 chopped green Chilies
* 4-5 chopped Tomatoes
* a whole bunch of fresh coriander leaves
Other Ingredients
* 500 g good basmati rice
* Oil for deep frying and 3-4 tablespoon for cooking
* 1 Tablespoon of ginger garlic paste
* 1/2 cup of milk
* a few strands of Saffron (kesar)
* Desi ghee (clarified butter) about 6-7 Tablespoons
* Cashew nuts ( a few or as many as you want)
* Raisins and almonds are optional
* Salt to taste
Stir the onions continuously for uniform browning. When they become light brown, drain them
on kitchen paper. Keep them aside. They will get nice crispy as they cool down.
Take a deep, wide mouth vessel and heat 3-4 tablespoons of oil in it. In this add the bay leaves,
cloves, cinnamon, cardamoms, little bit of shahi jeera and allow to crackle. Now add a
tablespoon of ginger garlic paste and stir a little. Now tip out all the marinated chicken and the
marinade. Cook on a high flame so that the water gets evaporated quickly. Add the chopped
tomatoes, mint, green chilies, all dry powders(coriander, chili), and salt. Cook till the chicken is
cooked and the gravy (masala) is not watery. Add one third of the fried onions. Mix well. Keep
aside.
Boiling rice is one of the most important part of cooking a biryani. The rice needs to be
parboiled. Meaning, it should be three fourth cooked. The rest of it gets cooked on dum (when
we layer the chicken and rice, seal it and put on a very slow fire).
To boil the rice take a big deep wide mouth vessel, add lots of water (at least 10 times more than
rice). Add ample salt (this is very important because the rice needs to be salty when cooked).
Also add a cinnamon stick, a couple of green cardamoms, a few cloves and the rest of caraway
seeds (shahi jeera), for flavoring the rice.
Now boil all this for a few minutes on a high flame (7 minutes or so). This is how to check if the
rice is done. Without burning your fingers, take a few grains of rice (use a clean spoon to take
some out of the boiling water), break a grain, if it breaks into 3 parts easily, your rice is done.
Strain the rice and spread it on a clean surface ( a tray or something), so that it cools faster. If
you want to pick out the whole spices which you added, you can do that now. Or else just let
them be.
Keep all these ready
Now that the rice and chicken are cooked. Fried onions are ready. You just need to get a few
more things organized, so that the layering can be done.
Take some melted ghee and grease the bottom of the pan with it. Then
Repeat and finish off with the rice layer. Lastly, sprinkle the leftover fried onions (if any),
cashews and other nuts. Pour the saffron milk on top. Also pour some desi ghee down the sides
of the pan and some on top of the rice. It will trickle down with the heat.
Yep, you are done. Seal the lid by sticking it with some chapati dough or simply fix a big foil
before placing the lid. The idea is to restrict the steam from escaping. Place this pot on a very
slow flame. Ideally place this vessel on top of another flat pan or tawa, so that the bottom of the
pan doesn't come in direct contact with the heat source.
Leave for one hour. When you open it, what you get is the magical, flavorsome and aromatic
chicken biryani. Please dig in. Don't forget to prepare a riata while your biryani is cooking.
Enjoy hot biryani with a cold raita