Biriyani is one of the most famous and lovable dishes in malabar.. name any occation u can find any type of biriyani in the main course. Chicken, mutton,fish,prawn,beef.. every malabari will start drooling seeing it!! LOL!!!

here is my biriyani recipe i made yesterday for my BIL! he gave me a 9/10 for it and when i asked him where did my 1 point go he said he needed more salt in rice! LOL!

here goes my recipe!

onions – 800grms
ginger garlic paste – 5 tbsps
small green chilli – 17 nons (to be made into a paste without adding water)
tomatoes – 250 grms
lime juice – 5 tbsps
yogurt – 2 tbsp
coriander leaves – 1 cup finely chopped
mint leaves – 1/2 cup finely chopped
curry leaves – 2 springs finely chopped
coriander pwdr – 1 1/4 tbsp
garam masala pwder (home made) – 1 tbsp
Chicken – 900 grms
rice – 7 cups (basmati or kola/kaima that u get in kerala)
ghee and dalda – as required
water – 10 cups

Take a large non-stick vessal (see my non stick vessal in pic! )and heat about 2-3 tbsp of dalda. If u dont use dalda u can use ghee i use both for biriyani. Add finely chopped onions

When the onions are brown add ginger garlic paste to it. mix well and when its nicely done add green chilli paste to it. After 2 mts add tomatoes and mix well. Let all the ingredients cook well.

now add the lime juice and yogurt to it. and mix well. Then add chicken, coiander,mint,curry leaver to it and cook for 15-20 mts. Be sure u have got enough ghee or dalda in it so that it wont get burned.

Meanwhile in another vessel heat 2 tbsp of ghee or dalda and add cashewnuts and raisin and fry then till brown. Add one at a time not together. After frying keep them in a seperate plate

Add water to the ghee. When the water boils add salt and rice to it. Make sure that the water is salty enough for the rice (by tasting it) and there is sufficent ghee (insert a spoon in the water and touch and see wthether it oily. (If its not oily u can add more ghee to it).

Close the vessel and cook till all the water drains away. When the water drains it will be more that 3/4th cooked.

Now by this time the chicken will also be cooked. Check whether its cooked if it is lets moove on to the dum part!!

in the chicken vessel add 1/2 tbsp of ghee or dalda in the center and all the for sides. After that add rice on top of it.

Evenly spread the rice and add a pinch of turmeric pwder, garam masala pwdr, the fried raisin and cashew nuts and lil bit of ghee. Like this make 3 layes of rice. And now cook again till the steam comes up. This will take another 15-20 mts. Please note that the chicken will be on the bottom of the vessel and the 3 layers of rice will be on top of it. ie, one layer of chicken and 3 layers of rice.

When the steam comes up turn off the stove and let it cool for 15 mts. After that open up and seperate the rice. Dont sepeate all the rice from the chicken there should be lil rice in the chicken mix.

Now its ready to eat!!! Serve hot with green chutney, raita, pickel!!! yummmmm

this is my second entry for the rice mela!