Malabar Chicken Biriyani

An original recipe followed by my mother and me since a long time. Adored by many of our friends and relatives, this is a dish which stands alone by itself and I find it an excellent choice for parties.

Ingredients:

Chicken - 1 whole cut into pieces
For marinade
2 Tbsp red chilli powder
1 Tbsp turmeric powder
salt to taste

oil for pan frying

For gravy
6 large onions, sliced thin
3 Tbsp ginger-garlic-greenchilli paste
2 tomato, chopped
2 Tbsp curd
2 Tbsp coconut, grated
2 Tbsp cashewnut
1 Tbsp almonds
1 Tbsp kus-kus (poppy seeds)
1 cup coriander leaves, chopped
2 Tbsp mint leaves, chopped
2 Tbsp garam masala

garnishing:
1 cup thinly sliced onion
2 Tbsp cashewnuts, broken into halves
2 Tbsp raisins, soaked & drained
2 Tbsp chopped coriander leaves

for rice:
3/4 kg basmati rice
Juice of 1 lemon
1 handful mixed spices
salt to taste

for dum:
1 cup pure ghee
1 Tbsp garam masala
1 Tbsp rose water
1 Tbsp milk
1 Tbsp saffron
1 Tbsp pineapple essence

Cooking procedure
Clean the chicken pieces and rub the ingredients for the marinade into the pieces. Refrigerate for 1 hour. Shallow fry in hot oil until slightly browned but not crispy. the idea is to make the masala stick to the meat well.

Gravy:

In a deep pan, heat half-cup oil and half-cup good quality ghee.

Add the sliced onions and saute until nicely browned.

Add the ginger-garlic-green chilli paste and saute again for 5 min until the raw smell is gone. Add the powders and garam masala and saute for a minute on low fire.

Now add the tomatoes and little salt and saute until well done.

Add the chicken pieces and saute for 5 minutes on high heat.

Add the curds and ground coconut-kuskus-cashew-almonds and saute again for some time. Now, add the chopped coriander leaves and mint leaves and while steaming, turn heat off. Put some more garam masala on top and keep it tightly closed.

Preparing Rice:

Wash the required rice (1/2kg rice for 4 persons) and soak for about half an hour. Drain.

Take a large enough (almost double the size of cooked rice) vessel and take water in it.

Add salt and mixed spices (some elaichi, cloves, cinnamon, pepper) and keep the vessel covered and boil it.

Now add the drained rice and cook in open pan, stirring in between.

Test for salt and add if the water tastes less salty.

It will be cooked in 10-15 minutes.

Test the grains for readiness by chewing.

It should be JUST cooked and not very well cooked.

There should be enough water during this process and the rice should be freely flowing, not congested.

If water is less, add some more boiled water.

Once cooked, drain the rice immediately using a colander.

This should be immediately used with the masala for the dum.

You can remove the whole spices if you wish.

Aso try adding some lemon juice to the water while cooking so that the rice remains seperate.

Garnishing:

In little oil or ghee deep fry thinly sliced onions (1-2No) until crisp and brown and keep aside. Now fry the cashews and raisins and keep aside.

Dum:

Take a heavy bottomed vessel and brush some ghee in it.

Put a thin layer of rice so as to provide a barrier to the meat.

Arrange the meat pieces and masala over it.

Put the rice on top of it.

To the hot milk add some yellow color, pineapple essence and saffron strands and pour on top of the rice.

Now pour some 2tsp rose water above it.

Pour some 3-5 Tbsp of ghee over the rice.

Put 1tsp garam masala over it.

Sprinkle the garnishing prepared above and put some chopped coriander leaves.

Cover the vessel and seal well with roti dough so that steam doesnt go out.

Keep on a slow fire or oven for 10-15 minutes. Ideally, heat should come from above the pan also, which is done by placing charcoals on the lid, but this step can be omitted.

Enjoy!