Biryani: Labour and Love in Every Bite
Written by Omaira Shamim
Note from Shakya:
Ramadan Mubarak to our readers, contributors, and MILK community as we begin the sacred month of fasting, prayer, and reflection. Although MILK is usually quieter during Ramadan, we're continuing our regular events. If you have some free time, join us on Monday or Friday mornings from 10-12pm for the conversation café.
Today's post is written by Omaira, whom we've had the pleasure of getting to know over the past couple of weeks at the conversation café. I love biryani, but never felt confident enough to make it myself. The perfect biryani requires a lot of time and effort. You always complete the dish with a grand reveal—lifting the lid and mixing the layers of chicken, rice, and fried onions, garnished with coriander and thinly sliced lemon—it's always a 'woah' moment.
I hope you enjoy this article.
Biryani: Labour and Love in Every Bite
Written by Omaira Shamim
I learned to make biryani because of my sister-in-law, who is an expert, and I always admired her biryani recipe. Everyone in my house liked her biryani. That gave me a thought to try the recipe. Biryani takes a long time to make and needs a lot of ingredients. My mum never tried making biryani, this is why everyone in my house loved eating biryani at weddings, family gatherings, during festive times like Eid, and especially when we visited our sister-in-law.
I learned to cook when I was 19 years old. I started with plain rice and pulao. In pulao, rice is cooked with chicken/meat or vegetables. Biriyani is different from pulao because in biryani a separate curry is made and layered with rice. I tried my first biryani recipe when I was in college. I got the recipe from a cooking channel and used ready made masala/spices from the store. That was perfect and delicious. Everyone in the family admired it. Then I asked my sister-in-law for her recipe, and used fresh spices, it was tasty. The rice was a bit mushy the first time, but no one is perfect and we learn with time.
Nowadays, I make biryani for my in-laws and my husband. I always want to make sure I have everything before I make it, you can’t make biryani spontaneously. To make a perfect dish, you need to give proper time and love and get the perfect taste.
Biriyani Recipe (serves 2-3 people)
Biryani is a mixed rice dish with meat/chicken or vegetables and spices. Biryani is the most popular dish in South Asia. Similar dishes are also prepared in other parts of the world in different ways, such as Malaysia, Iraq and Thailand. The history of biryani is associated with the Mughal Empire and has been a famous cuisine in the Indo-Pakistani subcontinent.
Ingredients
¼ cup of oil
½ cup or 2 medium-sized onions, chopped
1 tablespoon cumin (zeera) seeds
1 tablespoon whole black pepper
2-3 star anise
1-2 cinnamon stick
3-5 green cardamom
1 tablespoon or 3-5 cloves
3-4 curry patta (curry leaves)
2 tablespoons garlic and ginger paste
2 tablespoons coriander powder
2 tomatoes, chopped
1 ½ teaspoons red chilli powder
Salt according to taste
1 tablespoon turmeric powder
Juice of 1 lemon
3-4 dry plums (alu-bukhara)
1 kg chicken (cut into pieces, bone or boneless)
1 cup of yoghurt
3 cups of rice [basmati)
Fried onions and lemon slices to garnish
Heat ¼ cup of oil in a cooking pot, add the chopped onions and cook until brown.
Then add the cumin, black pepper, star anise, cinnamon, green cardamom, cloves, curry leaves, and the garlic ginger paste and mix well.
Cook it on a medium flame. Add the chopped tomatoes and cover the pot. Cook until the tomatoes are mushy like a paste.
Add the chili, coriander powder, salt, and turmeric and fry on a low flame until the oil gets separated from the mixture.
Add the dry plums, chicken, and yogurt to the fried spice mixture, it’s going to be watery, so let it cook until water evaporates, keep cooking the chicken for 5-10 minutes until the oil is separated from the chicken. Add lemon juice to the chicken mixture.
Cover the pot on a low flame but don’t let the chicken get mushy. If the chicken is fully cooked and soft enough then do not cover the pot. Keep the chicken curry mixture on a low flame, just to keep it warm.
Boiled rice:
Soak rice in lukewarm water for 15 minutes. Boil water in a pot with a cinnamon stick, cloves, and salt in it. Put rice in boiling water. Boil rice until it is ¾ done.
Take a wide, big cooking pot and layer the rice and chicken curry mixture one by one on top.
Mix a ½ tablespoon of mustard food colouring with 2 spoons of milk. Pour the colour on the layered chicken and rice in a circle.
Garnish with brown fried onions and thinly sliced lemon on top. Cover for 10-15 minutes on a low flame.
Open the pot and check if the rice is fully cooked. Steam it for another 10 minutes on a very low flame.
Once rice is cooked, mix it gently and enjoy with yogurt (raita).
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Well done Shakia , I love biryani