Chicken biryani

Ingredients

• Basmati rice — soaked 30 minutes500 g
• Chicken on the bone1 kg
• Thick yoghurt250 g
• Onions — thinly sliced3
• Ginger30 g
• Garlic6 clove
• Garam masala2 tsp
• Chilli powder1 tsp
• Turmeric½ tsp
• Cardamom, cloves, cinnamon, bay1 tbsp
• Saffron1 pinch
• Warm milk60 ml
• Mint and coriander1 sprig
• Ghee or butter60 g
• Saltto taste

Salt and spices grow more slowly than the rest: doubling a dish does not double the pepper.

Weight converts to ounces and volume to cups. Grams of flour are not turned into cups, because that depends on how tightly it is packed.

Method

1. 1

   Fry the onions in ghee to a deep gold — twenty minutes over medium heat. Set half aside: that is the birista, and the main flavour of the dish.

   20 min

2. 2

   Marinate the chicken in the yoghurt with the ginger, garlic, spices, half the fried onion, mint and salt. Give it an hour, better three.

   60 min

3. 3

   Boil the rice in plenty of salted water with the whole spices for exactly five minutes and drain. A grain should snap but stay white in the middle.

   10 min

4. 4

   Spread the marinated chicken over the bottom of a heavy pot and the rice over it in an even layer. Pour the saffron milk over in patches and scatter the rest of the onion and the herbs.

   8 min

5. 5

   Cover as tightly as you can, sealing the rim with foil if you like. Five minutes on a high flame, then forty on the lowest. Do not lift the lid once.

   45 min

6. 6

   Let it stand for ten minutes, then fold once from the bottom up, lifting the chicken into the rice rather than stirring everything to a mush.

   12 min

About the dish

What separates biryani from a pilaf is the layering. The rice is parboiled on its own, the chicken marinated and fried on its own, and only then are they stacked and finished in steam under a tight lid — the technique called dum.

The rice is drained at about seventy per cent: a grain snaps but the centre is still white. It takes the other thirty from the steam, drinking in the chicken as it goes.

The saffron is loosened in warm milk and poured over the top layer in patches rather than evenly. The point is rice of several colours, which is what tells a real biryani from yellow rice.

Worth knowing

• — The pot needs a heavy base. On a thin one the bottom layer burns before the rice is done.
• — The fried onion can be made ahead and kept a week in the fridge — half the flavour rests on it.
• — Basmati has to be rinsed until the water runs clear and then soaked. Without that the grains cling and the biryani turns to porridge.

Nutrition

Per serving at the base yield, calculated from the ingredients rather than measured in a lab.

Calories

720 kcal

Protein

42 g

Fat

26 g

Carbs

82 g

More from India

• Dal tadka — A lentil stew finished by pouring sizzling spiced fat over it. That step is the dish.
• Butter chicken — Yoghurt-marinated chicken, roasted, in a tomato and cream sauce finished with fenugreek.
• Palak paneer — Spinach blanched and blended, with cubes of paneer. Spinach must not be stewed or it goes brown.