Easy Chicken Dum Biryani

Making of Chicken Dum biryani definitely needs a skill to bring out the perfect taste, texture and smell. I have experimented a lot many times to bring out the perfect one. I don’t get satisfied at all, but this time, I was almost there 🙂 Who doesn’t love Biryani that too a dum biryani. My Husband once got the mughal durbar biryani, the rich ghee flavor in it was just awesome making it so special and also we are regular customer to kabab zone Bangalore 🙂 they make mildly spiced biryani which best suits with their special tandoori chicken. At least once a week we would have their biryani and tandoori chicken 🙂 helpless, just addicted to it.

This recipe is mix of both, mildly spiced and made with ghee 🙂 and it came out well that i wanted to share with you all.

Preparations:

1. Clean and wash the chicken pieces. marinate it overnight or at least 3-4 hours refrigerated. Mix in curd, ginger-garlic paste, green chilly, turmeric, salt, cumin powder, coriander powder, chilly powder, special garam masala(sakthi masala special garam masala), lemon juice, chopped coriander leaves, chopped mint leaves and mix well. Refrigerate over night or for at least 3-4 hours.
2. Soak the saffron threads in 1/4 cup milk.

Directions:

Cooking basmati rice:

1. Soak the basmati rice for 30 min. Boil water with salt, oil, bay leaf, star rinse and black stone flower(kal pasi)
2. Once it comes to a boil, drain the soaked rice and add it to the boiling water and let it cook until its 3/4 th done. you can check it by tasting the rice. it has to be in biting consistency and neither mushy nor hard to bite.
3. When it is 3/4th done, strain it and keep aside.

Caramelizing Onions:

1. Heat a tsp oil in nonstick pan, put in sliced onions and saute until it turns brown. add pinch of sugar and little bit of salt to speed up the process of caramelization.
2. Transfer it to tissue paper and keep it aside.

Cooking Chicken:

1. Heat Ghee in a cooker, put in the marinated chicken pieces and saute until it starts to leave out water. when it starts leaving out water, go for layering the biryani.

Layering the dum biryani:

1. Once chicken starts to leave out water, put the flame to low and add the 3/4th cooked basmati rice to it. spread it evenly.
2. Add chopped coriander and chopped mint leaves
3. Layer again with the caramelized onions
4. Pour in the soaked saffron threads milk into it
5. Keep a thick dosa pan preferably a cast iron pan and place the cooker/pot on top
6. Wet a thick cloth and cover it.
7. Place a plate on top of it and also place a heavy weight on top so that no aroma escapes.
8. Cook it for 30-40 min and then open and gently fluff the rice and serve hot with raita and salna