Cookery School : True-blue Chicken Biryani

Quite a few weeks ago (yeah, I am not the most prompt of bloggers!), one of our colleagues at work, Allie (or Mother Goose Allie, her being very mature and maternal toward the rest of us immature overgrown kids) was gracious enough to teach us her speciality - chicken biryani. The time was a lazy rainy Saturday afternoon after work, and the venue was, like for all cookouts, Agent J's bachelor pad.

This was the Real McCoy of biryanis - made in the authentic Muslim style and not a Punjabi/Udipi reinvention. The day before the cookathon saw us prepping for the big day - we shopped and marinated the chicken overnight in the fridge. This cut down on the cooking time considerably and let us sit down to an enormous - no, ginormous - lunch at the fashionably late hour of 4:00 PM (the travails of working half-day on Saturdays, I tell you...)

Imagine this ....pouring rain, overcast skies and a cold breeze outside the window ..... and inside, gently uncurling wafts of chicken-scented steam, a BIG pot of DELICIOUS piping-hot biryani and the most congenial company you can wish for. What a way to spend a gloomy rainy Saturday!

Biryani is the ultimate party dish - its taste is a sure-fire crowd-pleaser, it tastes best when made in a large quantity, just one dish on the menu generally suffices when that dish is biryani (if you can order in some dessert), AND there's an element of drama in uncovering the big pot of rice for that first waft of chicken, basmati rice and spices.

So round up your friends, cook up a big pot of biryani and have a great time!

Here is Allie's recipe for amazing chicken biryani:

Ingredients:

For the marinade:
1.5 tablespoons ginger paste
1.5 tablespoons garlic paste
1.5 tablespoons green chilly paste
400 gms thick yoghurt / curds
1.5 tablepsoons Kashmiri red chilli powder
1.5 tablepsoons garam masala (powder)
1 teaspoon turmeric powder
salt, to taste

2 whole chickens, cleaned and cut in approximately 10 pieces each (dont' use offal meat like livers/hearts tec)
1/2 kg potatoes, peeled and halved
1/2 kg birasta or deep-fried onion slices (1/2 kg after frying - if you dont get the readymade version, you'll have the painstaking job of thinly slicing 1 kilo of onions and deep frying them in oil till really crisp - track down the readymade version at Muslim caterers/grocers)
Khada (whole) garam masala - mix of 2-3 cloves, 2-3 cardamom pods, 1 inch stick cinnamon, 3-4 black peppercorns, 1/2 teaspoon coriander seeds (dhaniya), 1/2 teaspoon cumin seeds (jeera), 2-3 bay leaves
two handfuls mint (pudina) leaves
2 handfuls coriander leaves, chopped
1 kg Basmati rice
Lots of oil - for frying the potatoes and cooking the chicken
2-3 small tomatoes, chopped
salt, to taste
1 big pinch saffron (kesar) dissolved in 2 tablespoons warm milk - optional
3 tablespoons ghee - optional

Method:
Clean the chicken pieces thoroughly, and score cuts on the pieces for the marinade to penetrate inside.
In a BIG vessel, dump in the chicken pieces and add the ingredients of the marinade.
Crush in one-third of the fried onions as well.
Mix well, using your hands and rub in the marinade into the pieces of chicken.
Taste the marinade- it should be slightly saltier and spicier than is normal. Adjust the seasoning if required.


Cover the vessel with a lid, and refrigerate overnight or for at least 2-3 hours. Overnight is better.

Cook the basmati rice with 2 bay leaves and 2-3 teaspoons of oil in more than the usual amount of water (normally we use twice as much water as rice).
Once the rice is half-cooked, drain away the excess water. This process of par-boiling ensures that the grains of rice stand separate and not clump together in one sticky mass.


Fill a frying pan to upto 2 inches with oil. Put it on the stove till the oil gets hot.
Add the potato halves and fry till lightly golden and dark golden-brown around the edges.



Take the potatoes out, drain on tissue paper.

In a big (the biggest you can find) vessel/pot, add the 5 tablespoons oil.
Add the khada garam masala and saute for 2-3 minutes.
Add the tomatoes and stir till the tomatoes are softened.


Add the marinated chicken pieces along with all the marinade and give it a good stir. Keep stirring every 10-15 seconds or so else the chicken will stick to the bottom of the pot.
Add another one-third of the fried onions (crush them lightly before adding them to the pot).


Add the fried potatoes and stir well.
Cook for 10-15 minutes, stirring regularly. till the chicken is 3/4ths cooked.

Take off the stove, and divide the cooked chicken and potatoes into 2 (or 3) large pots/handis. This mixture should take up a little more than one-third of the volume of the pot.

Fill the pots till the top with the cooked rice.


Sprinkle mint leaves and the last one-third of the fried onions on top of the rice.
If you wish, you can add a swirl of the saffron-in-milk and a few spoons of ghee as well.


Cover the pot with a lid that is secure (not too many gaps for the steam to escape)

Switch on the stove, put a tava (griddle) on the flame. This spreads the heat over a larger area rather than the concentrated flame of the stove. Load the pot of rice and chicken onto the griddle, let it cook for a further 20-25 minutes on a low flame.

A glorious bouquet of aromas - spicy chicken, delicate Basmati, ghee, mint, kesar (if you have added it) shall waft your way once the biryani is ready.

Take the pot off the stove, and serve - the almost-plain rice (from the top of the pot) in one large communal plate and the spicy chicken-and-potato mix (from the bottom of the pot) in another. When you make biryani in such a large pot, there's no way you can combine both the layers in one single serving. :)

People can help themselves in their individual plates from both these communal plates, and eat and eat and eat.

Food heaven, here we come!