It's surprising how few recipes I can find for Biriani, and how much the individual recipes
I have vary. I can discount the Malay versions, I think; it's not really a Malay dish, and the
Malay Beryani (sic) tastes very different. Finally made a recipe from Charmaine Solomon's
“Complete Asian Cookbook”. Some of these recipes leave me with the impression that
they have never been accurately quantified, and this one had an ingredient (potatoes) that got
cooked and forgotten about. My interpretation diverged a bit, with good reason as it turned
out. This is what I made out of it.
Ingredients
| quantity |
ingredient |
step |
| 100 ml |
ghee |
1 |
| 2 |
large onions, pureed |
1 |
| 5 |
large cloves garlic, pureed |
1 |
| 20 g |
finely chopped ginger |
1 |
| 1 teaspoon |
chili powder |
2 |
| 1 teaspoon |
ground black pepper |
2 |
| 2 teaspoons |
ground cumminseed |
2 |
| |
salt |
2 |
| 0.2 g |
saffron strands |
2 |
| 400g |
diced canned tomatoes |
3 |
| 50 ml |
yoghurt |
3 |
| 50 ml |
chopped fresh mint leaves |
3 |
| ½ teaspoon |
cardamom seeds (not pods) |
3 |
| 5 cm |
cinnamon stick |
3 |
| 1 kg |
boned chicken thighs |
4 |
| 50 ml |
ghee |
5 |
| 1 large |
onion, pureed |
5 |
| 300 g |
Basmati rice, washed and dried |
6 |
| 0.2 g |
saffron strands |
7 |
| ½ teaspoon |
cardamom seeds (not pods) |
7 |
| 5 |
cloves, whole |
7 |
| 2.5 cm |
cinnamon stick |
7 |
| |
salt |
7 |
| |
strong chicken stock |
7 |
| 30 g |
flaked almonds |
8 |
| 50 g |
dried sultanas |
8 |
0: Preparations
Wash the rice and dry it on a teatowel. Prepare mincer and spice grinder.
1: Frying the onions
Pass step 1 ingredients through a mincer or otherwise make them really fine. They should be
quite wet. Don't clean the mincer yet, you'll need it for step 5. Fry the ingredients in ghee
until the fat separates and they're barely starting to go brown.
2: Spices
Grind the spices finely and add to the onion mixture. Continue frying until they smell cooked,
a couple of minutes.
3: Liquid
Add the tomatoes and remaining spices and cook until about half the liquid has evaporated and
the sauce is about as thick as cream.
4: Chicken
While the liquid is reducing, chop the thighs into portion sized pieces, about six per thigh.
Add to the sauce, mix in and cook for about 30 minutes. The meat will give off quite a bit of
liquid; cook strongly enough to ensure that the remaining sauce is creamy.
5: Onions for rice
Mince the onion as before and fry in ghee until the fat separates and it's barely starting to
go brown.
6: Rice
Add the rice to the onion mixture over medium heat and cover on all sides until the rice starts
becoming translucent.
7: Cooking rice
Add the step 7 ingredients and stir well. Initially the water level should be about one-third
as high again as the rice. Cook until the water level is the same as the rice level, then turn
heat down low, cover and cook for a further 2 minutes. Turn heat off and wait for a total of 20
minutes since covering the pot.
Put about 2 litres of water in an oven tray and turn heat on to about 180 °. When the rice
has finished cooking, place it in a serving dish and gently stir in the chicken and gravy. The
rice should be quite moist. Place in the oven to steam for ten minutes.
8: Garnish
While the rice is steaming, fry the almonds and sultanas in ghee individually over low heat.
When the rice is ready, garnish.
Serve with chutneys and raita.
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