Chicken Biryani Photo Guide

My obsession with Biryani may be justified by saying this- the perfect home-made Biryani is like the ever elusive Moby Dick. Sometimes, you wonder if it really exists. But that doesn't mean we should quit searching.  Today, I came quite close to perfection, and between the two of us, we finished the contents of the Dutch oven for our Sunday lunch. So, I can safely say it was good.

Here's a step-by-step photo guide to ease your efforts or keep track of your operation flow in the kitchen.

Step 1: Use (premium) long-grained Basmati rice and cook it with a few bay leaves, star anise ,  javitri ( mace),  and a cinnamon stick. Only parboil it. If you use a rice cooker, switch it off just before it is done to prevent it from overcooking later. I use a steamer.

Step 2: In the meantime, soak saffron strands in a little milk. Fry thinly sliced onions (2, big) in a pan with 1 tsp oil and 1 tsp ghee. Continue doing so on low heat until they brown. Then, drain them and let the excess oil/ghee soak in paper towels.

Step 3: (Most essential) Cook the meat (1 lbs, marinated only with turmeric, salt, and lime juice overnight to an hour). You may borrow some of the fried onions; add minced garlic and ginger (about 3 tsp). Fry well in 1 tsp ghee. Use a food processor to make a paste of the fried mixture. Add to the chicken, Cover and cook well with home made Biryani powder [Ingredients (Dry roasted and ground): Cloves, Cinnamon, Green Cardamom, Black Cardamom, Black cumin,  Mace,  Star Anise ] or store-bought alternative. The meat should be almost done. Sprinkle some water if needed, don't let the spices burn. Stir often towards the end when the water has dried up to prevent burning. Taste for salt.

Step 4: Add the parboiled rice on top of the meat. Discard the bay leaves and mace. You may use the star anise and cardamom stick. Cover on very low heat in a Dutch oven or use a baking tray to cook in a conventional oven. (I use a copper bottom stew pot now. I put weights on the lid to keep the steam from escaping).

Step 5: Warm the saffron milk in a microwave for 20 secs.  Pour over the rice. For garnishing, use the fried onions and boiled eggs sliced in half. You may also lightly fry the boiled eggs for a richer taste.

I boiled eggs and then forgot to add them since we were in a hurry to gobble it up. :D

Drink lime and mint sprigs enthused water to aid digestion. You may also eat yogurt or raita and ajwain (caraway seeds).

You may also like Crockpot (slow-cooker) Biryani

Egg Biryani

1. Boil eggs in water. (on low heat, I discovered that hard boiled doesn't necessarily mean on high heat). I used 4 eggs for my required number of servings. Pour cold water, remove shells. Cut in half.
2. Finely slice onions. Fry in 1 -2 tsp ghee, with whole cardamom(4 green, 2 black), 1 cinnamon stick, 2 bay leaves torn in halves, about 4-5 cloves and peppercorns. Add your preferred ready-made biryani powder to the mix and a little salt.  You can add two slit green chilies here.
3. When the onions are about done, place the eggs, albumin side down and continue frying in  low heat. Turn once and remove the eggs. (Or else the eggs might break. Doesn't look good)
4. I use parboiled or pre-cooked rice . Add in installments while you stir well. 
5. When the rice is about cooked, add the eggs again. Sprinkle garam masala (preferably made at home) and cilantro leaves. 
6. Pair it with raita. I enjoyed it with mixed vegetables. You may also  prepare a meat dish to go with it.

Crockpot Biryani

Here, I tried to emulate dum-styled cooking using a slow cooker/crockpot. For Dutch oven recipe, click here.

1. Clean thigh pieces (I prefer with bones), make shallow cuts on the meat, dry well with paper towels. Add whole spices like : green cardamom, cinnamon, bay leaves, cloves, javitri(mace), peppercorn and any packaged biryani masala you prefer. Yogurt , salt if needed, ghee(clarified butter). Coat well and uniformly.
2. Set the slow cooker for 4 hrs after greasing the bottom with ghee. Place the chicken. 
3. Rinse Basmati rice and soak in water for couple of hours while you fry thinly sliced onions till brown.
4. 2 hrs into cooking, turn the meat to the other side. Add browned onions, layer it with the soaked rice. (or  you can add parboiled rice later) Add saffron soaked milk, and rose water on top of it. Cook for another 2 hrs.
5. You can add nuts, raisins and plums if you want to make it richer in taste(Shahi). Some ppl use tomatoes,  potatoes (interesting history of recession-proof Biryani). You can learn about several variants here.

Alternately, you can cook the chicken and the rice separately (difference with pulao), then  layer them in a rice cooker or baking tray in an oven for shorter cooking time.

Chicken first

After adding Basmati rice

Final product