One day mom asked Amrit what are your favorite food when he was slurping his yolk dipped dosa.
Amrit has been a very picky eater in the past, mom did not expect the list to go beyond dosa and pongal. But to mom's surprise Amrit stacked a few dishes - dosa with dip egg, pongal with red chutney, Biriyani with chicken, pork curry, pasta and noodles. Mom got so excited the list actually went beyond two things.
After a hectic week with work, mom decided to take the day off on friday. Mom was still worn out with working back to back. With little energy mom brain scurried what would she do to make the best out of the day. Suddenly it felt like a good idea to cook Amrit's and dad's fave Biriyani with chicken. Mom opened the fridge and found she didn't have tomatoes, cilantro and mint which were very important
to make a mouth watering Biriyani. Mom dead set on making it either way just decided to go with the flow, because cooking is just a risk free adventure and you take head on what comes your way and enjoy what you make out of it.
Mom has some onions, ginger and garlic(thank god!!), curry leaves, whole spices, chicken drumstick. Dad lend a big hand in cleaning the chicken drumsticks and marinating it. Recipe goes like the below
Marinade:
Chicken drumstick
Chicken masala
Chilli powder
corriander powder
cumin powder
salt
pepper
turmeric
dry fenugreek leaves
yogurt two spoons, oil - dont over do
Marinate and keep it aside
Ingredients for Chicken gravy
Whole masala - go with what you have in hand - cloves not more than 2
onion - chopped length wise
green chilly - 2
ginger
garlic - which Amrit helped me to peel
Curry leaves
Grinding ginger and garlic without water in a small mixer
Heat ghee in a pan, once hot infuse ghee with all whole garam masala and a generous sprig of currry leaves. Give a min to fry the masala and add the onions, fry it until the onions are nice and soft and slightly caramelized. Add ground ginger garlic and roughly chopped green chilly to it and saute it until the raw smell goes away and blends well with onion. Add the chicken to the onion and gg mix. give a nice stir and close it with lid. check on it after 7 mins and add may be 3/4 cup of a water and cover it again. The bigger size of Chicken drumstick will need more time release liquid and the drumstick might get burnt before that. If it is chopped chicken, its good to refrain adding water and let it cook on its own juice. It will almost 25 to 30 mins to perfectly cook the chicken. Check on it like may be once in between and add more water if necessary.
Rice:
Rice is a the jewel of the briyani, not the chicken. In mom's opinion Rice receives the light(flavor) from the chicken and shines like a precious stone. So cooking a firm, well cooked and fluffy rice is the key to Briyani. Wash long grain basmati rice in water at least three times- this removes the excess starch and keeps the rice fluffy. In a hot large skillet, add ghee and once hot add a generous sprig of curry leaves add the washed rice and fry on on low heat, until every grain is separate and bit plumped by the heat and ghee. Add the rice to the large pan, add a bit less than 2 cups( 1 and 3/4) of water for one cup of rice. When there is no time to soak the rice, add a little more than 2 cups of water, perhaps a 2 1/4 cup will do. Add salt and lemon juice and give a taste check. You are going to add chicken gravy to this so go cautious with salt. Close the lid and cook it on low-medium flame for 20 mins with checking on it once in between. Fluff it with fork.
Layering and Dum:
To make the rice in Biriyani to shine it needs some more color. Its very customary to add saffron to the rice to add rich flavor and color. Since quality saffron are too hard to access and mom would frown upon adding artificial colors, mom had this idea of infusing milk with turmeric to get a rich yellow color. Warm half a cup of milk in microwave, add a heaping teaspoon of turmeric in milk dissolve it and heat it in intervals of 30 secs. This will take away the raw flavor of turmeric and brings out that rich yellow color. Since it was a scorching summer day mom was pretty reluctant to turn on the oven.So did the dum in instapot. Alternatively if the weather is cold you can crank up the oven to 400 deg and Layer rice and chicken in a oven proof pan, close it with lid and dum it for 15 to 20 mins. Let it rest for another 20 mins, before you serve.
Heat the pot add ghee and add a generous sprig of curry leaf. Add the cooked chicken and gravy. Add cooked rice to cover the chicken completely. Drizzle generously the turmeric milk water. Add more torn curry leaves. Add chicken with gravy again and then rice followed by generous drizzle of turmeric water. Close the lid and wait until you see the food burn. Remove the liner from instapot and Biriyani is ready to be served. Give it mix and let it sit for 10 mins. Enjoy curry leaf infused briyani with cooling yogurt and boiled egg on the side.
Mom felt the adventure went on well. The absence of mint and cilantro paved the path for curry leaves in the biriyani which had a intoxicating flavor and smell.
Verdict:
Amrit - this is so yummy worth stealing from your plate :)
Dad: perfect thattukada biriryani
Mom: happy that the day turned out gloriously well.
Comments
Post a Comment