A well-made biryani is the ultimate comfort food. Chicken, vegetarian, seafood, egg- no matter what kind of biryani it is – they all are delicious. Food should not only taste delicious but should be easy to make too, I’ll be sharing a very easy recipe for delicious Chicken Biryani.
2 – 2 ½ lb. Chicken (whole skinless, bone-in chicken cut into pieces, you can use boneless chicken too)
¾ lb. Rice (long grain basmati)
To marinate the chicken –
1 cup yogurt (plain)
1 tablespoon ginger paste
2 tablespoons garlic paste
2 tablespoons lime juice
½ teaspoon red chili powder (adjust heat as per your liking)
1/8 teaspoon orange food color (powder form, optional)
3 tablespoons oil
Salt
To cook the rice –
1 bay leaf
1 cinnamon stick
4 green cardamom
4 cloves
4 whole black pepper
Salt
Water enough to fill a large pot to boil rice freely
Final layering –
1 medium onion (thinly sliced) + 3 tablespoons oil (for frying)
2 jalapeno, julienne (use as per your liking)
2inch ginger, julienne
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg powder
1/8 teaspoon mace powder
¼ teaspoon food color (you can also use saffron here)
¼ cup milk
½ sugar
1 tablespoon screw pine water/rose water
1+1 tablespoon oil
Ingredients:
Preparing Chicken –
Wash the chicken pieces well and thoroughly dry them with paper towel. In a large bowl combine all the ingredients for marinade, mix well. Add the chicken pieces to the marinade and mix well to evenly coat all the chicken pieces. Let the chicken marinade for at-least 2 hours, best overnight.
Once ready to cook, transfer the chicken along with all its marinating liquid to a large cooking pot with enough room to hold everything very comfortably. On a medium- high heat cook the chicken till all the liquid has dried out and you can see oil separating on the sides. Once done the chicken should be completely cooked with thick sauce sticking to it. Keep aside.
Frying the onions –
In a large frying pan heat the oil on high heat and add the sliced onions, fry them continuously stirring till the start to get golden brown. Remove the pan from the heat immediately. Remember the pan will be still hot and the onions will keep cooking for some time turning them to a deep brown color.
Getting the rice ready –
In a very large stock pot add good amount of water, bring the water to a boil. Wash the rice and drain well. Once the water starts to boil add the ingredients listed for cooking the rice. Now add the washed and drained rice. Let the rice boil till it is 95% cooked (almost done). Immediately drain the rice in a strainer. Make sure that all the ingredients needed to layer the biryani are ready before you get the rice ready, you cannot let the rice stand for a long time. You need to start layering the biryani immediately once the rice is done to keep the rice moist as well as fluffy once the biryani is all done.
Final layering –
Preheat the oven to 325 degree F
Combine milk and sugar in a bowl, mix well to dissolve the sugar. Add the food color, mix. If using saffron strand use little warm milk and after dissolving the sugar add the saffron strand and let it stand for 5-7 minutes.
Take an oven proof large baking dish or Dutch oven and coat the bottom with little oil. Now add half of the cooked chicken, evenly laying them. Now on top of the chicken layer add a layer of half of the cooked rice. Top the rice layer with the layer of remaining cooked chicken. Now sprinkle the cooked onions along with all the oil evenly over the chicken top it with julienned jalapeno and ginger slices. Spread everything evenly. Now top with the final layer of rice, make sure to layer it evenly to make a neat layer covering from edge to edge.
Now on the top of the final layer of rice, sprinkle nutmeg and mace powder. Pour milk mixture in 3 – 4 different spots. Finally add Kewra/Rose essence. Cover the dish/pot very tightly using an aluminum foil; we don’t want any steam to escape while we let it cook slowly in oven.
Put the dish in the oven and let it cook for about 30 minutes.
Remove the biryani from the oven and let it sit for another 5 minutes before removing the foil, fluff the rice using fork a little.
Serve hot, Enjoy!
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