Chicken Biryani Recipe: Secrets to Making a Perfect Biryani

If I ask you, “what is your favorite Indian rice recipe?”, I’m sure your best answer will be “a biryani”. Even in biryanis, the most popular of all is a chicken biryani.

So here is a recipe for you to make a perfect biryani.

Required Ingredients

Ingredients to marinate the chicken

* 1 Kilo of Chicken with bone cut into 12-16 pieces
* 1 cup of curd
* 1/2 teaspoon of turmeric powder
* 1 tablespoon ginger-garlic paste
* 1 teaspoon coriander powder
* a little bit of salt

Mix all the above ingredients and marinate the chicken for 6-12 hours, the longer the better.

The herbs, spices and seasonings used are as follows

* 8 teeth
* 1 cinnamon stick
* 6 green cardamoms
* 2 bay leaves
* 1/2 teaspoon shahi jeera (caraway seeds)
* a few pinches of grated nutmeg and mace each
* 1 teaspoon of coriander powder
* 1 teaspoon red chili powder (to taste)
* 5-6 tablespoons minced fresh mint
* 2-3 green chilies, chopped
* 4-5 tomatoes, chopped
* a whole bunch of fresh coriander leaves

For fried onions

About 8-9 medium onions

Other ingredients
* 500 g good basmati rice
* Oil for frying and 3-4 tablespoons for cooking
* 1 tablespoon ginger-garlic paste
* 1/2 cup of milk
* a few strands of saffron (kesar)
* Desi ghee (clarified butter) about 6-7 tablespoons
* Cashews (a few or as many as you like)
* Raisins and almonds are optional
* Salt to taste

fry the onions
While the chicken is marinating, cut the onions into very thin slices. You can use a food processor for this or a slicer. Now heat the oil and fry these sliced ​​onions in batches. The heat should be medium. Definitely not tall, otherwise the onions will burn.

Stir the onions continuously so they brown evenly. When they turn light brown, drain them on kitchen paper. Keep them aside. They will crisp up nicely as they cool.

cooking the chicken

Take a deep wide-mouthed pan and heat 3-4 tablespoons of oil in it. Into this add the bay leaves, cloves, cinnamon, cardamoms, some shahi jeera and let it crackle. Now add a tablespoon of ginger garlic paste and stir a bit. Now dump all the marinated chicken and the marinade. Cook over high heat so the water evaporates quickly. Add the chopped tomatoes, mint, green chilies, all the dry powders (cilantro, chili), and salt. Cook until the chicken is cooked through and the sauce (masala) is not watery. Add a third of the fried onions. Mix well. Stand aside.

parboil the rice

Boiling the rice is one of the most important parts of cooking a biryani. The rice needs to be parboiled. That is, it must be three quarters cooked. The rest is cooked in dum (when we layer the chicken and rice, we seal it and put it on a very low heat).

To boil the rice, take a large deep wide-mouthed container, add a lot of water (at least 10 times more than the rice). Add plenty of salt (this is very important because the rice needs to be salty when cooked). Also add a cinnamon stick, a couple of green cardamoms, some cloves and the remaining caraway seeds (shahi jeera), to flavor the rice.

Now boil all this for a few minutes on high heat (7 minutes or so). This is how you check if the rice is done. Without burning your fingers, take a few grains of rice (use a clean spoon to scoop out some of the boiling water), break one grain, if it breaks easily into 3 parts, your rice is ready.

Strain the rice and spread it out on a clean surface (a tray or something), so it cools faster. If you want to choose the whole spices you added, you can do so now. Or just let them be.

Keep all this ready

Now that the rice and chicken are cooked. Fried onions are ready. You just need to organize a few more things, so the layers can be done.

* Chop coriander leaves
* Boil the milk and add crushed saffron. Give it a stir.
*In desi ghee, fry cashews until golden brown. Also almonds and raisins, if using. Stand aside.
*Keep some melted desi ghee aside.

biryani layers

Take a heavy-bottomed saucepan with a lid (non-stick is best).

Take some melted ghee and grease the bottom of the pan with it. After

* Put a layer of rice,
*Then a layer of chicken
*followed by a layer of fried onion
* then a layer of chopped coriander.

Repeat and finish with the rice layer. Lastly, sprinkle with leftover fried onions (if any), cashews, and other nuts. For the saffron milk on top. Also for a bit of desi ghee down the sides of the pan and a bit on top of the rice. It will leak in the heat.

Yes, you are done. Seal the lid by gluing it down with some chapati dough or simply attach a large piece of aluminum foil before placing the lid on. The idea is to restrict the escape of steam. Place this pot over very low heat. Ideally, place this container on top of another flat pan or tawa, so that the bottom of the pan does not come into direct contact with the heat source.

Leave for an hour. When you open it, what you get is the magical, tasty and aromatic chicken biryani. Please go deeper. Don’t forget to prepare a riata while your biryani cooks. Enjoy hot biryani with a cold raita.