Here is a great recipe for Chicken Biryani from Kishore. It takes less than an hour.
This Thanksgiving Kishiore, Lovely and Amni came all the way from Chicago. It was wonderful time and was great to see family again. I had heard so much of Kishore’s famous biryani from my mom over the past 6 months and I really had to taste this. So, on Thanksgiving, along with the Turkey we had Chicken Biryani.
What is Biryani ?
Biryani is not a single dish, but a whole range of rice-based dishes that are made from spices, rice and meat or egg or vegetables. Biryani, sometimes also called biriani, or beriani, is a loanword borrowed from Persian. It’s basic meaning is “fried” or “roasted”. Thus, Biryanis are not a traditional Indian dishes, but were brought to India by travelers and merchants from Iran and Western Asia. Hence, biryani dishes can be found all over South-East Asia, in Arabia and even in the Middle Eastern countries.
Not surprisingly, there are a variety of cooking techniques and ingredients that are used to make biryani. The most typical ingredients are ghee, cloves, cinnamon, cumin, cardamom, bay leaf, garlic, ginger, onions and saffron. For a non-vegetarian biryani, apart from the spices, meat such as lamb, goat, chicken, beef or shrimps may be used. Vegetarian biryani is made of various vegetables like cauliflower, carrots, beans etc. Biryani is usually served with a raita on the side. It may be garnished with slices of boiled egg or fried onions or dried fruits.
One of the most popular versions of the biryani is the Hyderabadi biryani. To make things even messier, this one has variations itself: so, a variation of Hyderabadi biryani would be Kachi Akhni, which consists of marinated meat and rice that are cooked together.
Another popular form of Biryani is the Awadhi Biryani that comes from Lucknow, a city in Northern India. In this biryani, the meat and rice are cooked separately and then arranged in layers and cooked a second time using a cooking technique called dum.
The Calcutta biryani is an off-shoot of the Awadhi biryani. This is similar to the Awadhi biryani but apart from the mat and rice, potatoes are a main ingredient. This biryani is less heavily seasoned than the Hyderabadi biryani.
What do you need
· Store bought Biryani Mansala (Banne Nawab’s Chicken Biryani masala)
· Yogurt
· Fresh mint
· Fried Onions
· Basmati rice
· Cooking oil
· Lime, Fresh green chili peppers, cilantro, mint and red onions for garnishment.
· And don’t forget Chicken (preferably, whole chicken –ask you butcher at the grocery store to cut into small pieces)
Time
· Prep time 30 min
· Cook time 60 min
Directions
You can use any biryani masala. This one seems to taste better.
Open up the box, there will be two pakages
1) Pouch for Rice
2) Pouch for Chicken marinade
Read the instructions and ingredients. Please make a note of the amount of chicken needed and the rice. Usually one package will serve 6 people and require 2.00 lbs of chicken (for medium to spicy flavor).
Follow the instructions and marinade the chicken for at least 1:00 hour. This will allow the masala to nicely soak into the chicken and make is more flavorful.
In a fairly deep pan/wok, on a medium flame put 4 table spoons of cooking oil and let it heat for a minute or so.
Once the oil is hot and sizzling transfer the marinated chicken and cook for 10 minutes. Make sure the flame is medium. Make sure to stir the chicken occasionally.
We looking to half cook the chicken. The rest of the cooking will be done in the oven with rice. Once the chicken is half cooked put is aside to cool down.
In a separate bowl rinse and soak the recommended amount of rice for 30 min.
In a fairly deep dish boil water. The amount of water is about 3 times the amount of rice in volume. (1 cup rice = 3 cups water).
Put the ingredients of the rice pouch in the water while it is being heated.
Once the water starts boiling put the rice in and allow it to cook for 6 minutes.
Drain the water from the rice.
In a big backing pan, arrange the cooked rice, fried onions and chicken in layers. Allow the juices for chicken to mix well with rice. The flavor of fried onions and chicken will flavor the rice.
Sprinkle some red food coloring over the rice and cover the whole pan with aluminum foil.
Bake this in the oven for 45 minutes at 450 degrees.
Garnish with red onion, mint and a lemon wedge. Usually, Biryani is enjoyed with yogurt chutney called Raita.
