Blend some flavourful spices, massage the chicken with the spices and cook with rice. Perfect one pot Meal!
Taste great with raitas, egg pepper roast, chicken 65, Mutton curry.
If you marinate the chicken with masala’s overnight, the chicken will be juicy and flavourful. Blend the ingredients in the blender, massage the blended paste to the chicken, and marinate overnight or at least 30 minutes. This makes the job lot easier next day.
I made this two weeks back when my friend came to visit me. 😀 She said she wanted only Biryani for the night with boiled egg. She kept mentioning boiled egg 101 times. Not sure why :D. Looks like she was cheated with no egg for a biryani before :D. I guess chicken biryani always pairs with raita and boiled egg. I got Quail eggs ( Kadai muttai in Tamil) for her 🙂 just to make some difference. I heard it doesn’t make any difference to taste, however, it is very healthy and also a cute mini version of eggs :D.
Biryani is one of the most popular dishes in India. There are varieties of biryani like Hyderabadi biryani, Mughal biryani, chettinadu biryani, Kashmiri biryani. It is a perfect Sunday lunch idea. There will be no one saying NO to biryanis, let it be vegetable biryani, chicken biryani, shrimp biryani, palak biryani, chickpea biryani, potato biryani, paneer biryani, dum aloo biryani, cashew biryani, lamb biryani, egg biryani, mushroom biryani and so on! I have a biryani collection and it is one of the highest viewed pages.
I have two Chicken Biryani recipes – Chicken Biryani Restaurant Style, Chicken Biryani Homestyle.
- • Grind:
- • • Lime juice - 1 tbsp
- • • • Khus khus (white poppy seeds) – ½ tbsp.
- • • Cumin seeds/ jeera – ½ tbsp.
- • • Green chillies - 2
- • • Fennel seeds – ½ tbsp.
- • • Garlic – 4 pods
- • • Ginger – 1 inch
- • • Mint – ½ cup, chopped finely
- • • Coriander leaves – ½ cup, chopped finely.
- • • Pepper powder – 1 Tsp
- • • Salt – 1 tbsp
- • • Biryani masala – 1 tbsp
- • • Red chilli powder – 1 Tsp
- • • Yoghurt – 2 tbsp
- • • Oil – 1 tbsp
• For garnish: - • • Ghee – 2 tbsp
- • • Lime - small cube or 1 Tsp
- • • Mint – 2 tbsp finely chopped
- • • Coriander leaves – 1 tbsp, chopped finely
For chicken gravy: - • • Oil – 2 Tsp
- • • Ghee – 1 Tsp
- • • Bay leaf – ½
- • • Cinnamon – 1 thin piece
- • • Cloves – 3
- • • Cardamom pods -2
- • • Green chilli – 1, slit
- • • Onion – 1, large, sliced
- • • Tomato - 1, small, chopped
- • • Turmeric powder – ½ tsp
- • • Chicken – 600 gms
For rice: - • • Basmati rice – 2.5 cups
- Grind everything together under the “to grind” ingredients.
- Marinate chicken with the blended masala. Keep it aside for 30 minutes minimum of 12 hours. Keep it aside.
- Heat 2 tsp of oil with 1 tsp of ghee in a heavy bottomed pan, add the sliced onions, salt and sauté well over medium heat till they become slight golden colour. Then add the sliced tomatoes with little turmeric and sauté well for 2 minutes till they become mushy.
- Add the marinated chicken and sauté for a minute till all the chicken gets coated with onions and tomatoes.
- Add the 2.5 cups of rice and mix well. Add 4 cups of water to it with salt.
- Cover the entire pan with foil and cover with a plate. Place a weight on it and let it cook on medium flame for 7 minutes and reduce the flame to medium to one speed lower. Keep a dosa/crepe pan below your biryani pan and now cook for 20 minutes on the very low flame. Switch off.
- Now remove the weight and foil and fluff the rice carefully. Add the chopped coriander and some lime juice to garnish.
2. Gently mix the rice at the end, don’t break the rice.
3. Don’t compromise on the quality of the rice. Use basmati rice and not long grained rice.
4. Marinating chicken is a must. Marinate at least for 30 minutes, I soaked overnight.
5. Don’t overcook the rice, and then the rice will be mushy.
6. Cover the dish and bake in a 350f oven for 15 minutes.
7. If it is spicy in the end, squeeze some lemon, it will reduce the heat and enhance the flavours also
Spices massaged to the Chicken, marinated overnight, layered with rice, fried onions and cooked slowly to perfection for the chicken juices to go in the rice!
