Recipe for making Large Tray of Chicken Biryani
Biryani is a mixture of various spices, rice and meat (chicken/goat etc) as a main course dish. Biryani is loved and enjoyed dish in all the parties especially among south Asian weddings, get-togethers, potlucks. It’s like, how birthday cake is important in a kid birthday party. Without Biryani party is not complete, and when we have biryani, that itself is a party.
My journey for a perfect Biryani:
My spouse, Zaheer, loves biryani. He wants to have a spicy and flavorful biryani with more spices in it. My Mother-in-law was a great cook. She used to make excellent biryani. Only, she can reach his expectations. She has specialization, in his son's favorite dishes. It’s not just me; even my friends and relatives can’t stop appreciating and wanting for more after eating her food.
I learnt making biryani from my mother-in-law. It took lot of practice, experiments and time for my biryani to reach her taste. After a while, I decreased the quantity of spices and spiciness in it. The quality and taste of biryani was going down. So, we started going to restaurants to have good biryani. We ate biryani at different Indian restaurants, and covered cities around us. Finally, we selected two restaurants which are in driving distance from our home. We were going to those two restaurants more frequently. He was happy.
I told my friend and neighbor, Snobar Ashraf, about my Biryani exploration story. One day, she brought Biryani, for us, it’s so tasty. I can’t stop eating. Salt, spices and falvour are so perfectly blended. Zaheer loved the Biryani. After a while, we again went to his favorite restaurant. To my surprise, my friend Snobar's biryani is way better than our favorite restaurants biryani. I told her, about our experience. And asked her, if she could share her recipe and cooking method. One weekend, she took time at our home and showed, me all the steps. And I noted the points.
Finally, am happy, that I reached Zaheer's taste expectations in his favorite dish. I’m glad, that hunt to tasty biryani has come to an end. My friends, relatives, community gatherings, all love my biryani. My friends remember and praise for my biryani, even after 1 month.
I mostly cook for 5-7 people. Potlucks, parties gathering with friends, made me to learn to cook larger quantity. Most of the people, know how to cook biryani, but they find difficult to cook in larger quantity. That's the reason, am sharing the recipe for large tray. It’s time to share the recipe with you all, not only with my friends but with everyone who love perfect Biryani. Thank you, for being here to look at my story. Below is the recipe for you. Hope you enjoy it.
You can cook this biryani in two methods. One you can ground the biryani spices, to fine powder and other method is you can add the spices whole. I prefer, grinding, because it won’t bother my small kids, while eating and I noticed more flavor and taste, when I grind spices into powder.
Ingredients:
Part1 - Biryani spices to powder
- Cinamon 8-10
- Cloves 8-10
- Cardomon 8-10
- Black Cardmon 4
- Javatri/ Mace 4
- Star anise 4
- Bay Leaves 10
- Pepper Pops 2 tsp
- Cumin 2 tsp
- Shahi Jeera 2 tsp
Part 2
- Frying Oil
- Lemons 2
- Curd – 2cups(400 ml)
- Garlic and Ginger Paste 3 tbsp
- Onions 8
- Coriander 1 bunch
- Mint 1 bunch
- Coriander powder 2 tsp
- Chicken 2kg (5 pounds)
- Tomattoes 8
- Dry Plum 8 (Aloo Bukhara)
- Rice 6 cups
- Chilli powder
- Salt
- Crushed red pepper
- Green chillies 5
- Basmati Rice 6 cups
- Olive Oil
Serves for 12-15 people.
Directions to cook:
1. Wash Chicken, and keep it in the strainer, it drains out the water. If chicken has more water absorbed, pieces will break easily after cooking.
fry Mint in little oil, and keep aside for garnishing.
2. Pour 4 tbsp oil in a cooking pan, fry onions to brownish color, add half spoon salt while frying, it will make the onions to shed water ,helps in frying faster. Keep half of the fried onions aside for garnishing.
3. Add Garlic & Ginger paste, and sort about a minute.
4. Add chopped tomattoes, cover the lid. Cook until the tomattoes become fine thick paste stirring ocassioanlly.
5. Add curd (plain youghurt), lemon juice.
6. Grind the ingredients from part-1 into fine powder. Add to your cooking. Your gravy Color, changes to brown but dont worry, its expected and rice tastes good.
7. Add Coriander powder.
8. Pour 2 tbsp of Olive oil, in a pan add chicken and fry for 5 minutes.
9. Mix the chicken , cooked biryani gravy, add dry plums and cook together.
10.Now add salt, cut green chillies by slitting vertically and crushed pepper as per your interest.
11.Gravy should be thick (as a curd.). Cook until the chicken is tender.
12. Set the oven temperature to 370F, until the rice is cooked.
13. Soak basmati rice for 20 minutes before cooking. Bring the water to boil, add 2tbsp Olive oil, Salt, 4 Cardmons , 4 bay leaves . Cook for a minute , and then add rice and cook on high flame.And cook until rice is 70% cooked.(low flame will make the rice, more soft).
14. Take the large tray, and keep the layers of cooked rice, chicken biryani gravy, fried onions, fried mint, finely chopped coriander. Repeat the pattern of layers for 2-3 times. While serving, it helps you get each and every garnishing.
15. Mix the orange red color in little water, and add on top of biryani.
16. Keep in the oven for 30 minutes. Check the rice,gravy should be all absorbed into the rice. Rice should be cooked.
17.Your yummy biryani is ready to serve.
Tips to cook your favourite Biryani faster:
Usually, cooking biryani takes 3-4 hours for the whole process, from chopping to cooking, adding rice. I have 3 kids and dont have time and patience, to cook a dish for such a long time. Heres, how I do to cook our favorite dish faster.
1. cut onions, and fry in one pan.
2. Cut tomattoes, and cook them with closed lid, on other pot.
3. Fry mint on one more pan.
4. Sort chicken, one more pot.
5. Onions take longer time, to fry brown, so until then I add all the other ingredients in tomattoes pot, like curd, lemons, ground biryani spices, chillies, red crushed pepper, salt.
6.Add Garlic ginger paste in onions, fry it and add chicken, tomattoes pot. mix and cook together.
7. While the above is cooking, boil water in a big pot, and preheat the oven.
8. The above steps, helps you cook faster.
