Chicken Dum Biryani

• 1kg Chicken – cut into medium size pieces
• 750gms biryani rice – washed and soaked for 30 minutes
• 4 medium onions sliced
• 4 medium tomatoes sliced
• 2 tbsp freshly done ginger garlic paste
• 10-12 no green chillies chopped - lessen or increase the no of chillies as per your taste
• 1 cup beaten yoghurt
• Salt as per taste
• Juice of 1 lemon
• 1 small ball tamarind
• 1 cup fresh mint leaves – keep it whole, don’t chop it.
• 1 ¼ cup oil

Whole spices

• 5-6 pieces cardamom - elaichi
• 2 inch piece cinnamon – dalichini
• 5 cloves - laung
• 1 whole black cardamom - badi elaichi
• ½ tsp caraway seeds – shah zeera
• 1 tsp whole black pepper – kali mirch sabut
• 2 bay leaves – tej patta
• 1 pinch nutmeg powder- zaiphal
• 1 strand mace – javitri

Powdered spices

• 1tsp chilli powder
• 1 tsp pepper powder
• ½ tsp turmeric powder
• 1 ½ tsp whole cumin – roasted and powdered
• 2 tsp whole coriander – roasted and powdered

For Garnishing/dum

• 1 tbsp fried onion
• 1 lemon cut into small pieces
• 1 medium size tomato – remove the inner pulp and cut it lengthwise
• 2-3 green chillies cut into half
• 2 tbsp pure ghee
• Few strands of saffron soaked in ¼ cup warm milk
• A little yellow color mixed in 2 tbsp of water
• Few drops of rose water

Cooking the chicken

• Heat oil in a thick bottom pan, add whole spices, when it splutter, add onions and fry till golden brown.
• Add chicken, sauté it for 2-3 minutes on high flame. Add ginger garlic paste, tomatoes, green chillies and cook it on low flame for further 3-4 minutes or till tomatoes becomes soft.
• Add powder spices, salt, yoghurt, stir and cook it covered for 5-6 minutes. Open the pan and add tamarind ball, cook it covered for 2 more minutes.
• Switch off the flame and open the lid. There will be lots of oil floating on top of the meat. Put all the mint leaves and lemon juice. Don’t stir. Cover the pan, close the flame and let it stand for around 5 minutes. **take care not to open the pan in between, the oil should extract all the flavors from the mint.
• After around 5 minutes remove the excess oil from the pan either by using a small spoon or by tilting the pan. This should come around ¾ cup of oil. We will use same oil while giving dum to our biryani.

Cooking the rice

• In a large pan heat around 8-10 glasses of water, add salt, juice of 1 small lemon and 1bsp oil. When it comes to a boil add rice and cook it till it is ½ done. Strain and keep aside.

Layering the biryani and dum cooking it

• Biryani will be arranged into two layers. First layer will be of chicken and rice layer will go above it.
• In a deep bottom pan pour the prepared chicken.
• Spread rice over it evenly.
• Arrange the tomatoes, green chillies, fried onion, and lemon pieces.
• Sprinkle rose water, pour over saffron, ghee, yellow food color and oil that we had removed from cooked chicken.
• Seal the pan with a foil paper, cover the lid. Place the pan on a tawa or griddle and cook it on lowest available flame for 15- 18 minutes.

Serving

• Biryani is now ready to serve. While serving, first remove all the rice from the top layer in a container or a casserole. And lightly mix chicken layer. Fill half of the serving plate with chicken and remaining half with the rice.
• Serve it hot with any raita of your choice.