Katchi Biryani is the royal dish amongst all the exotic rice dishes of India, and remains the dish to serve on all best and auspicious occasions. Whether one serves it to welcome house guests on their first day, or whether it be the main course of the menu in formal entraining, or a gala festivity, the painstaking care which the housewife will take in the preparations of Biryani will commence when she selects her ingredients. Nothing but the best will do. Although there are numerous variations of Biryani, our carefully compiled recipes are fit to serve Royalty. The pride and care that goes in the making of Biryani is a story itself. We remember nostalgically, the day when grandma used to make Biryani.
Ingredients of Chicken Biryani
- 2 lbs. chicken
- 4 large onions, finely sliced and fried in ghee or butter
- 2 cups yoghurt
- 3 green chillies, chopped
- 2 green chillies, whole
- 1 bunch mint leaves, chopped
- 2 Tbsp. ghee or butter
- 1 tsp.garam masala
- 1 Tbsp. ginger-garlic paste
- 2 3/4 cups rice
- pinch of saffron
- 1 bunch coriander leaves, chopped
Procedure of Chicken Biryani
- Marinate chicken with fried onions (should be red and just crush it with hand, don’t blend), yogurt (put a lot of yogurt and onions if you want a lot of masalas), chopped green peppers (don’t use red mirchi powder, the taste won’t be the same), chopped mint leaves, ghee, garam masala powder, salt, ginger-garlic paste. Leave this to marinate at least 4-5 hours if it’s chicken, and 12 hours if it’s lamb or goat.
- Meanwhile, prepare for the rice by putting all these ingredients out, because the rice gets ruined if you start looking for everything while doing the … mix food color or zaafran (saffron) in milk, chop coriander leaves, a few green peppers (whole, don’t chop), garam masala powder, fried onions, butter or ghee, lemon juice.
- Boil water, when it starts getting hot, put whole garam masala (long, big ilaichi – the black one, Kala jeera (black cumin), whole black pepper, cinnamon sticks) and a little bit of oil so that the rice grains don’t stick to each other (something I learned from my mommy) and salt… when the water comes to boil, put the rice in and boil slightly (I keep the mark by checking the rice and I strain it when the rice grain gets 3-4 lines on ’em LOL… cook it a lot less than you normally would for regular biryani because it has to cook more with the chicken…)
- Once you strain the rice, leave a thin layer of rice on the bottom of the pot because the chicken/meat tends to stick, so if there’s rice on the bottom, that’ll stick, not the meat.
- Dump the marinated chicken in the pateela, and cover the chicken with rice.
- Cut the butter stick into 4 pieces and put each piece in a different part of the pot.
- Pour the lemon juice over the rice, I like to make a smilie face with the color/saffron milk sticking the green peppers in the rice as eyes LOL…
- Then put the coriander, fried onions, and sprinkle a bit of garam masala powder.
- Cover the pot completely with foil and then the cover so that no steam gets out. Leave it on high heat for a while (maybe 10 mins) after that turn it to medium.
- If you have a burner, its better than an electric stove because the heat gets everywhere; but to be on the safe side, rotate the pot every 10 mins so that the meat cooks evenly.
- After about 30-35 mins, you’ll smell the biryani because of immense steam coming out of the pot… you might want to check if the rice looks properly cooked… if so you can turn it off… if there’s no steam coming out, then leave it a few minutes more…
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