Kerala Biriyani

This is my first post in this blog and I thought I will not be doing justice to this blog if I would start with anything else other than my favorite food "Biryani" ! :-)

This I should say is a variation of the Thalassery biriyani found on youtube. I have used two steps from their recipe into mine, rest of the recipe I can say , is absolutely my creation ! I have more than 3-4 recipes for Biriyani and I am sure most of us must be having multiple recipes. I think after trying out this recipe, I have never till now, gone back to my previous ones.

This one is a very simple one, the only thing that takes time here is frying the onions, which the Thalassery people call it the "bistha". Love that word, sounds so much better than "fried onions " ;-).

I generally, like making mutton biriyani when I have guests, because the fat from the mutton makes the biryani much more tastier.

Anyways, yesterday I had a couple of families over for dinner and this was my menu . To start with , we had palappam, Fish molee and tuna cutlets. Then, we had this chicken biryani with of course its never separable companions, raita, pickle and papoddom.

Okay, let me go to the recipe.


What you need to get started 

Basmati Rice - 5 cups ( U.S. measuring cup ) ( I used Royal Basmati rice)
Chicken - 1.1/2 kgs
Onions - Large yellow ones from Costco - 2 No.s
Tomatoes  - 3 no.s
Pearl Onions or Shallots (Kochulli )- 10 no.s
Pudina (mint leaves) - a handful
Malliella ( coriander leaver )- a hand full or a little more
Curry leaves - nice large sprig
Green chillies - 7-8 ( depending on your tolerance )
Ginger - 3 tablespoons ( chopped )
Garlic  - 2 table spoons ( chopped )
Curd - 2 table spoons
Lemon Juice - 2 tablespoons ( Add more if you like the tangy flavor)
Poppy seeds - 2 tablespoons
Almonds - 10 nos.
Raisins - ( I use the black ones ) - 3 tablespoons ( you can use 2, if you want to reduce that sweet flavor , I really love that taste and smell )
Spices:
Cinnamon - 1-2 inch long
Cloves 4-5
Fennel seeds- a teaspoon
Star anise - 2 nos.
Bayleaf 2-3
Elachi  3-4
Vanilla essence 2 table spoons
Milk 5-6 table spoons
Yellow food color if you want
Salt - ofcourse :-)
Method

1. Soak the raisins, poppy seeds and almonds in 3-4 table spoons of hot water, keep aside
2. Start frying the large onions, the whole thing should be fried to a golden brown color and kept aside. (Don't fry it too dark, it darkens as it sits)
3. Make a paste of the Tomatoes, pudhina, malliella, green chillies.
4. On your pester mortar or if you don't have one, in your small grinder jar, make a paste of the ginger garlic. In malayalam, I would say, chathechedutha paruvam.
5. Soak the rice.
6.Add dalda or ghee or oil into the pan. I generally use Dalda and ghee. Add the raw spices, Cinnamon, Cloves, Elachi, Star anise, Fennel seeds, Bay leaf
7. Add the sliced pearl onions with the curry leaves. This brings a good aroma in the house, pearl onions, curry leaves cooking in ghee, makes an Indian house smell good ;) bringing back memories of home in kerala.
8. Once that is sautéed , add the paste of ginger garlic.
After the raw smell of that goes, add the paste of tomatoes, mint leaves, coriander leaves and green chillies.
9. Once the raw smell goes, add the chicken and cook for 5-10 mins., closed with a lid, stirring in between. At this point, you may want to add the salt.
10. Add 3/4 portion of the "Bista" now.Keep cooking
11. Add the paste of raisins, poppy seeds and almonds.Keep cooking
12. Add Yogurt, let it still keep cooking
13. Finally the lemon juice.
Check the taste, switch off now  !

(Within 25 minutes, your chicken should be done cooking. Add needed amount of salt as needed.)

Then comes the story of rice

1. Dont soak the rice for more than 30 minutes.
2. Keep a big pot of water to boil, and once it boils, add the raw spices, 1 cinnamon stick, 3-4 cloves, 2 star anise, 2-3 bay leaves, Elachi 3-4, add the rice and then some salt ( this is your last chance to decide the right amount of salt for your biriyani). Now, keep checking the rice, when you think its almost done, you can drain the rice. I spread the rice on a flat foil tray so that it doesn't get cooked in the heat in your colander.

Marriage between the Chicken and Rice


1. Mix the Vanilla essence and milk, if you want you can add food color or saffron.
2. On a flat foil tray, add a few table spoons of ghee, then add rice, a thin flat later, add 1-2 spoons of the milk vanilla essence.
3. Add your cooled chicken gravy a portion over the rice.
4. Keep repeating the process, until its all done. Cover with foil.


Preheat oven to 300 F, put the tray of biryani into the oven and let it bake there in the oven for a nice 60 minutes. You can keep it longer, by bringing down the oven temperature to 275 F and baking it for 2 hours.

Once, its done. Take it and serve it to your guests, Enjoy !