For biriyani first of all we are going to start with preparation of barista. For that we are going chop 3 medium sized onions into medium-thin slices. Then put a kadhai/oak on flame, add refined oil (as per your discretion for frying). Then add onion slices in it.

The things that we need to be careful about during frying of onions are:
First, if the oil is bubbling up in kadhai during frying, put your ladle (Cooking stick) in the center of oil and up n down it a few times then the level will go down.
Second, add a little bit of salt in onions to help with the cooking, and it is not limited to biriyani only. Salt helps in quickly frying the onions.
Third, always chop the onions in equal pieces so that they will be fried equally otherwise they will have uneven color with some being raw and others golden and brown. Stir them in-between so that they will be cooked evenly.

Remove the onions from flame after they have turned golden and place them in a bowl. No, you should never fry your onions till they are brown because the heat remaining in them will charr them after you take them out.

Now we will move to marination of chicken, for that first we will separate 2 tbsp of fried onions from total to a bowl. To that we will add 1 small cup of curd, (beaten if you can add), finely chopped coriander leaves or stem(1/2 tbsp) for better smell, finely chopped mint leaves( a few like 10-12 no.s)for characteristic biriyani taste, green chilies (2-3 no.s), ginger-garlic paste(2 tbsp) and 2-3 tbsp of oil in which we fried the onions, mix all of them thoroughly and patiently. The most important ingredient for biriyani is patience, which you need to have a lot of. Now to the mixture we add salt for taste ( a bit salty will make the chicken soak the extra salt from marination.), coriander powder(1/2 tsp), turmeric powder(Haldi 1/4 tsp), red chili powder(1/2 tsp) and mix them thoroughly Now add this mix to our chicken, then again mix them thoroughly( Damn man how many times do I have to mix these sh-t…….., well a lot). Now we will add 2 tbsp of oil(in which we fried onion) to the mix and mix them thoroughly. This process plays an integral part in setting our marination on proper path otherwise it will just taste bland. Do mind the word ‘thoroughly” as the coating needs to be uniform.

Next we are going to move to making rice for our biryani. For that you need to take basmati rice. ( To know more about rice, read my blog “Origin of rice”).

For making the perfect rice for biryani, we will take water in to a rice cooker or tradition pressure cooker without the top cover. Take water as required and it needs to be 4 inches above rice level. To that we will add a pinch of salt, ghee(1 tsp), cinnamon stick(1/2 inch), 1 bay leaf and let it be heated up. After it starts boiling, add basmati rice(3 cups).

It is a common mis-conception among people that for biryani we need to use basmati rice, but that is so so so not true. You can add any type of rice to the biryani other than the sticky ones, as long as the grains of rice stays separated and individual. You can find this cuisine diversity in southern India where biryani is made from short rice grains.

Now back to our rice, after the grains have become elongated, slow down the gas and start removing the rice to another bowl. After we are done with that, we will start making biryani layer. (A pro tip Always get the rice out in two batches. The first batch should be taken out first (well obviously) and it will be layered near the chicken as it is under cooked and it will be cooked while we give it ‘dum’. The second batch will be taken out after the rice becomes elongated and it will go to the top, it needs to be cooked to 80% as it will hardly get any heat and moisture at the top anyway.)

Before layering we will make an aromatic and colorful syrup. For that we will take milk (1/2 cup), saffron water (1 ½ tsp), green cardamom and mace powder(1/4 tsp), green chili(1-2 if you want spicy), few mint leaves(5-6) roughly torn, coriander leaves (2 tbsp) and a pinch of salt( just take a guess, if you are making biryani you are close to pro anyway).

Now for we will start layering the biryani. The first layer that will go into the pot is chicken along with its marination. Add the first layer of rice(Undercooked one). On the first layer of rice add our pre-prepared syrup(2/3) and the remaining fried onions which we had kept aside during start. Now we will add our second layer of rice(the 80% done one) and syrup (1/3). Now enclose the pot and make it air tight. You can do that by adding a layer of towel on the edges of the pot and in between the lid and pot or you can make a small dough of flour and seal the edges. Now bring the chicken to a boil at high temperature and shift it onto a pan and put it at the slowest and lowest flame possible. The boiling can be done before sealing the edges as it will be helpful for you to notice when the steam rises and when you have to put the pot on pan. Leave it on flame for 15-25 minutes on flame (the timing starts after the pan becomes hot). After our time is up stop the flame but keep the lid on for another 5-10 minutes if you can wait ( I know you are already salivating from the smell and I am not blaming you, I also put the lid out after stopping the flame and start devouring). After another 5-10 minutes of putting the lid out (yeah you need to do that or otherwise the rice won’t maintain its structure during mixing), we are ready to serve.

Thank you for reading and have a very delicious day.

Photo by Shreyak Singh on Unsplash