Ingredients
- For Chicken curry
- 2 lbs boneless and skinless chicken thighs cut into bite size pieces
- 1 large onion chopped fine
- 1.5 tablespoons ginger garlic paste
- 3 green chillies chopped
- 3/4 cup coriander leaves chopped
- 1 /2 cup mint leaves chopped
- 1.5 tablespoon canola oil/ ghee
- 2 large tomatoes finally chopped
- 1 tablespoon Garam Masala
- 2 teaspoons kashmiri chilli powder
- 1/2 teaspoon turmeric
- to taste salt
- 2 tablespoons thick yogurt
- 1/2 cup coconut milk
- For Biriyani Rice
- 4 cups basmati rice
- 1 tablespoon ghee
- 8 cardamom pods
- 8 cloves
- 2 inch cinnamon stick
- 2 bay leaves
- 10 peppercorns
- 1 star anise
- For Layering
- 1/2 cup chopped coriander leaves
- 1/2 cup chopped mint leaves
- 1/4 cup cashews (roasted in ghee)
- juice of 1/2 lemon
- 1 tablespoon Kewra water (essence of screw pine)
- 1/2 cup fried onions
- 5 boiled eggs (cut in half)
- few stands of saffron soaked in milk
- dough made of all purpose flour / whole wheat flour to seal the pot
Steps
To start with the chicken curry, sauce onion in a frying pan till it’s turns light brown. Add green chillies, ginger-garlic paste and sauce till it blends well and is aromatic.
Now add the mint and coriander leaves and mix well. Add tomatoes to this mixture and cook coved on low flame till it’s all well incorporated. Add all the dry spices and mix well. Sautè for a few minutes for the spices to be well absorbed.
Add yogurt to this mixture and mix well. Now add the chicken pieces and sauce till all pieces are well coated in this mixture. Cooked covered on low flame till the chicken pieces are cooked. Finish the curry by adding coconut milk and mixing well.
To prepare the rice, soak rice in cold water for 30 minutes and drain well. Pour ghee in a deep pan and sauce all the whole spices till aromatic. Add rice and sauce well for a few minutes. This ensures that the rice doesn’t turn out sticky. Add 4 cups of cold water. We want the rice to be almost cooked, not fully cooked. Cook the rice covered on low flame till its fluffy and almost done.Pick out all the whole spices from the rice.
Choose a wide container with a secure lid to layer the biriyani. Start layering the biriyani by putting a thin layer of rice, topped with an even layer of chicken curry. Add another layer of rice, topped with fried onions, mint, coriander, cashews. Repeat the process till the top layer. Garnish the top most layer of rice with mint, coriander, cashews, kewra, lemon juice. pour saffron milk on 1/2 cup of rice and to the top layer. Arrange the egg half on top, yolk side down.
Seal the mouth of the lid with dough to make it air tight. Put in a preheated oven (350 degrees farheight)
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