Bombay Biryani

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Courses: dinner, lunch, main, party food

Difficulty: Intermediate

Servings: 6

Best Season: Suitable throughout the year

Ingredients

1 kg chicken cut in to 12 pieces (wash and dry the chicken thoroughly)
6 whole tomatoes (cut into quarters)
6 whole baby potatoes (peel and cut in halves)
1 kg basmati rice (wash and soak for 30 minutes)
2 whole lemons
1 cup yoghurt
1.5 tbsp ginger garlic paste
1 cup fresh mint leaves
4 whole cloves
1 tsp black cumin
2 tbsp coriander powder
1/4 tsp yellow food colour
3 whole onions (thin sliced)
1 cup dry plums (soak in warm water)
1.5 tbsp salt (preferably pink/Pakistani salt as per your taste)
6 whole green chillies
6 whole green cardamom
6 whole black peppercorns
1 tbsp red chilli powder
1 cup warm milk
1 cup cooking oil

Instructions

1
First, wash and dry the chicken thoroughly.
2
Marinate the chicken with yoghurt, ginger/garlic paste, red chilli powder, coriander powder, 1 lemon (squeezed), fresh mint (chopped), green chillies, dry plums and salt.
Massage all ingredients well into the washed and dried chicken and let it all rest for 30 minutes.
3
Pour cooking oil into a pan and add onions.
Fry the onions till golden brown colour. Once ready, remove half the quantity of fried onions, spread them on a kitchen towel, and leave the remaining half in the pot.
4
In the other half of fried onions, simply add marinated chicken, potatoes, and tomatoes.

no additional water to be added

Cover and cook for 25 minutes, uncover and evaporate any leftover water/ moisture. Roast and fry until oil separates. Once done, set the gravy aside, this will be used in the final step of layering.
5
In a separate pot, boil basmati rice. Add mint, green chilli, green cardamom, black peppercorns, salt, and cloves while boiling.
Rice should always be boiled in a big pot and in a good quantity of water. This helps the grain to cook to its maximum length and fluff nicely.
6
When the rice is parboiled, drain all the water and set the rice aside. These will now be used for layering.
Rice should be 70% cooked when drained.
7
In a clean cooking pot, spread a little oil around and set a layer of half of the boiled rice.
8
In the same pot, add all the prepared chicken (including curry and masala) as a second layer on top.
9
Add the rest of the boiled rice as a third layer on top with fried onions, yellow food colour, squeeze in the remaining lemons' juice, and let everything cook for another 10 minutes on medium flame with the lid on.
Mix a pinch of yellow food colour in warm milk to add at this stage. Also covering the pot with foil and then the lid will help the rice steam better.
10
After 10 minutes, lower the flame to minimum.
11
When the steam pops up, your Bombay Biryani is ready!
As guidance, this can take up to 20 minutes for basmati rice and 35 minutes for sella basmati rice.
12
Serve with boiled eggs, kachumber salad, mint sauce, or raita.

Whatever you like :)

Enjoy!!

Keywords: Bombay biryani, chicken biryani, biryani rice, murgh biyani, Indian biryani, Pakistani Biryani