- 2 days ago
In this edition of Epicurious 101, learn how to make authentic chicken biryani from scratch with Chef Neel Kajale. Learn how to build layers of flavor with an aromatic biryani masala, perfectly cooked basmati rice, and juicy marinated chicken.
Category
🛠️
LifestyleTranscript
00:00Biryani is considered this quintessential dish that almost defines Indian food.
00:04It is easily one of the most ordered dishes at any restaurant.
00:08Everyone always has this preconceived notion about biryani that it's an extremely time-consuming
00:12recipe but there's nothing to be really worried about. If you just look at it, it's all about
00:16layers. Today I'm going to be making a biryani with a dhamm method of cooking and dhamm literally
00:21means to cook under pressure. It's a very uniform and even method of cooking and it just makes the
00:27biryani super fluffy and super moist on the inside.
00:34A masala is just an aromatic blend of spices. I have a recipe for a biryani masala. It uses all
00:41these really nice warm aromatic spices. I'm going to toast them and then I'm going to grind them up.
00:46Do you need a biryani masala? 100%. Do you need to make it yourself? No, you can buy it. I
00:51have a
00:51really nice white skillet. I want to get the pan really nice and hot and then when the spices go
00:55and you can obviously reduce the flame because you don't want the spices to over toast and burn.
00:59So the whole point of this is to kind of release the essential oils that are on all these spices.
01:05So I'm not going to have any oil in the pan. Dry red chilies. So these chilies are spicy but
01:11they
01:11also have that really nice floral fragrant aroma of dry red chilies which is perfect for the biryani
01:16masala. Whole bay leaves. Mace which is the outer bark or the coating of a nutmeg. Very fragrant,
01:23very flavorful. Cumin seeds, caraway seeds. A biryani masala needs to have green cardamom in it and it's
01:29usually the aroma that stands out the most when you're smelling a biryani masala. Whole black cardamom
01:34is a very strong spice. Whole black peppercorns, coriander seeds. So the cinnamon is going to add that
01:39sweetness. Whole cloves. So I would think about four to five minutes and you can start seeing it. The one
01:46thing that you want to do is you want to just keep swirling your pan. You don't want the spices
01:49to burn.
01:49That's the last thing you want. If you start smelling the spices and you feel they're really nice and
01:54aromatic, pull them off. So my spices are toasted right now. They're perfect. So what I'm going to do is
01:59rather than leaving them in this pan, I am going to transfer them into another bowl.
02:07Have the nutmeg. It's a very delicate spice. Probably one-fourth of this nutmeg for so much of
02:13biryani masala. That's perfect. Half a teaspoon of the turmeric powder, which doesn't need toasting
02:18because this on the heat would immediately burn. Dried fenugreek leaves, which is also called
02:23kasuri methi. It's got this bitter umami and it gives a lot of depth to a teaspoon of salt. Very
02:29important tip. You don't want your spices to be too fine. You want that biryani masala to have a
02:34little bit of a coarse finish. It's perfect. I exactly wanted to look this consistency. It's not a
02:42fine powder and some of the spices didn't even completely grind. I want it to look like that.
02:49I have chicken thighs and chicken drumsticks. The fact that it's on the bone lends a lot of character
02:57to the final dish. Chicken is a much more common protein that's found in biryani, though traditionally
03:01biryani was made with goat or mutton. With marinating our chicken, make your marinade and then add your
03:06chicken. First things first and the most important is the reserved oil from your birista. Birista is
03:12fried onions that we use for biryani. Traditionally, if you were slicing onions, you would go along with
03:18the grain. You would literally follow the lines that are on the globe of the onion. For birista,
03:22you'll do it a slightly a little differently. You cut it across the grain. So what you get are these
03:26even slices and strands of onion, which you need to pull apart and break apart. And what this ensures
03:31is that your onions caramelize and they turn golden brown, but they also crisp up at the same speed and
03:36at the same rate. If you haven't had the time to fry the onions and make your own birista, you
03:40can just
03:41use regular neutral oil. I'm going to be using four tablespoons of the ginger garlic paste. So this is
03:45just equal parts of ginger and garlic. Ginger and garlic are two ingredients that Indian cooking cannot do
03:51without. Green chili paste is just thin, slender green chilies blended with oil, but this just adds
03:57that fresh heat that takes my chicken to a whole different level. Kashmiri red chili powder. Kashmiri
04:02red chili powder gives you this really nice bright red color. The turmeric and just that much is enough
04:07for the color that I want in the final product. The biryani masala that we made, coriander powder. Salt and
04:13this is completely up to your discretion. Probably half a lemon into this. The reason why I'm rolling it like
04:19this on the wooden board is just, it's going to release a lot more juice and it's going to be
04:23a
04:23little easier for me to squeeze it when I put it into the lemon press. I am very happy with
04:30the way
04:30that tastes is when I can go in with my chicken. I cannot forget to put the fried onions that
04:35we
04:35made earlier. We are going to be using about 70% of the fried onions. The remaining we save for
04:40later
04:41for the layering process. We're just going to let our chicken rest in the refrigerator for the next two to
04:46three hours. We're all ready to go in with the yogurt. I have full fat Greek yogurt which I just
04:51whisked with a
04:52little bit of water. I just got it really nice and smooth. I wanted to evenly really coat the chicken.
04:58The
04:58water from the chicken and the yogurt breaking down that really adds body to this chicken curry for our biryani
05:04layering. Traditionally we use dahi which is the yogurt that we get back home. Greek yogurt is a fantastic alternate
05:10to that.
05:10Greek yogurt readily available everywhere. I haven't been able to tell much of a difference when I've
05:15used Greek yogurt versus when I've used regular dahi. So I have a nice generous bunch of mint and
05:20coriander, cilantro. So my greens are cut. I'm going to go in with half this mix of the coriander and
05:28the
05:28mint. So this looks great. The chicken's marinated with the yogurt and the herbs now. Good to go. I'm just
05:33going to set this to the side. When you think of biryani the first ingredient that comes to your mind
05:40is the rice. For today's biryani what I'm going to be using is called a Silla basmati rice. If you
05:46look
05:46at it the rice has this lightish yellowish hue to it which means that the rice has been aged and
05:52I can smell the age on it. I have my soaked rice here soaking for an hour, hour and a
05:58half and it's
05:59perfect. So I simply soaked it one to rehydrate the grain of starch and to also reduce the cooking
06:05time when I'm cooking the rice. If I hadn't soaked this rice it would easily take about 11 to 12
06:09minutes
06:10but with the soaking and with the fact that the grain's been rehydrated this should not take more
06:14than four minutes to cook. I have a pot of water which is at a vigorous rapid boil. It's not
06:20just
06:20boiled rice we're literally perfuming the rice. So I have a bunch of whole spices, star anise, I have some
06:26black peppercorns, I have green cardamom and cloves, a stick of cinnamon and bay leaf. I'm going to add
06:31a slit green chili. I'm going to add a little bit of oil to my rice. I just like the
06:36fact that the rice
06:37has a nice sheen on it when it's done cooking. I have some caraway seeds again. Just like you're cooking
06:42any starch or any grain I'm going to go in generously with salt. Adding lemon juice and then the whole
06:48lemon itself just preserves the color of the rice. You don't want to keep agitating with a spoon,
06:54you don't want to keep stirring it. That'll break the rice. When I feel that it's 70 to 75%
06:58done,
06:58I am going to immediately take it out, just saw the rice and it's perfect. Like I'm able to smash
07:05it but it doesn't completely smash. It still holds its shape which is perfect. I have a sheet tray and
07:11I'm going to start fishing the rice out of this pot. I want to spread this out. If this just
07:16sat on top of
07:17each other, the steam is going to completely overcook the rice and I don't want that. I want the rice
07:22to be
07:22nice and distinct from each other. Rice looks perfect. We're going to move on to making our jhol next.
07:29So jhol is the fuel for a dumb cooked biryani. Jhol is literally a thin broth or a thin liquid
07:37that adds perfume and aroma to the rice and to the meat. Slowly start heating up this cream and let
07:43it get nice and warm. I don't want it to boil. I just want it to get warm enough where
07:48I add the
07:49saffron strands to it and it slowly and steadily releases its aroma into the saffron. We pull out
07:55all the special big guns for this dish. So saffron is not something that we cook with on a regular
08:01basis. It's a very luxurious ingredient. A saffron is completely infused and while it sits in that bowl
08:06it continues to infuse. In the meanwhile, I'm just going to melt out some ghee which is clarified
08:11Indian butter and I have a whole slender thin green chili. I'm just going to slit it in half. I'm
08:17going
08:17to let the fat do its thing and again the same philosophy, the same principle, you're building
08:22flavor in layers. So you're kind of infusing that fat with the green chili and you go straight inside.
08:28Now is when we add real perfume to the jhol and this just takes your jhol to a complete different
08:35level. This is what makes restaurant biryani taste so fragrant and aromatic. So I'm going to go in with
08:40my rose water which is gulab jhol. That's more than enough. It's pretty strong, it's pretty flavorful.
08:46That by itself should be more than enough to give the kind of flavor that I'm looking for. I'm going
08:50to
08:51add the same amount of keoda pani into the jhol and it's perfect because it kind of emulsifies
08:55everything together and you have this beautiful liquid, almost like liquid gold, just so fragrant,
09:01so perfumed. This looks perfect, smells perfect, our biryani jhol is ready.
09:08The next part of the biryani is making the dumb dough, the thing that seals the gap between the
09:15pot and the lid of the pot. And what this does is it traps all the steam inside. Of course
09:21you can
09:21definitely use aluminum foil and definitely you can use a damp muslin cloth to create that dumb
09:26seal but of course nothing beats the traditional way of actually making a dough, rolling it out,
09:32putting it on the lid, putting it on the edges and really locking that steam inside. I'm going to go
09:36in with some wheat flour or atta as they call it, a little bit of oil and water. This is
09:43just for the
09:43simple purpose of making a really nice dough, a tactile dough that's going to seal the pot. I'm just going
09:49to roll it up into a ball, have it covered with a damp cloth and then I'm going to use
09:54this to seal my
09:54biryani when I'm done with all the layering process.
10:00We're down to a last step before we actually start layering the biryani. So I have a really nice heavy
10:05bottom cast iron skillet. The plan or the goal here is to not cook the chicken all the way through.
10:11So the reason why we're only going to cook it about 70 to 75 percent right now is to also
10:16preserve the
10:17moisture in the chicken. Full heat, I'm going to use a combination of two fats. I'm going to use
10:22the onion oil that we have from frying the barista, some clarified butter or ghee. Probably drop a little
10:28bit of that marinade just to see if the oil's hot enough. I'm very happy with that. I'm going to
10:34go in
10:34with all my chicken all at once with the marinade, everything. I hate wasting any sort of flavor
10:41just left in the bowl because it's just going to go into the dish pit. I would rather get my
10:45hands dirty and
10:46wash my hands off rather than just losing all that marinade and all that flavor in the bowl. Trying
10:50to get a sear on the chicken so that it locks that juiciness and that freshness inside the chicken.
10:55I'm just trying to get a little bit of color on the chicken where I can tell that the chicken's
11:01skin
11:01has been exposed to that heat. That's where all the flavor is. If you look at it, I haven't had
11:05any
11:06water. I haven't added any stock. I'm just waiting for the yogurt to break down. I'm just waiting for the
11:10chicken to break down. That's what is going to be the main base for this fantastic chicken biryani.
11:16Chicken's fully seared. I am going to get the heat down now so that I can slowly just put the
11:20lid on
11:20this and let the chicken cook. This chicken is going to take about seven or eight minutes to get there
11:2575 to 70 percent of the weight done in terms of its cooking. I don't want to overcook this. The
11:29chicken
11:29should be done by then. It's time to assemble our biryani. What I have are all the components that I
11:37need
11:37to build layers on this biryani. I'm going to start off with, first and foremost, the jhol. Spread out
11:43a very thin layer right at the bottom of my dutch oven. So the whole point of just adding a
11:49spoon of
11:50this jhol is for it to be the first layer of lubrication between the pot and the rice. So I'm
11:55just going to go in with an even layer of rice. Take your time with this. It's all about patience.
11:59So spread the rice out evenly. You want to make sure that you just have a little bit of rice
12:04rice. That is going to be the first layer. The chicken is 70 percent cooked. I like the fact that
12:11all the fat that we used, the onion oil and the ghee is kind of surface to the top. Kind
12:15of swirl
12:16them around in that sauce because that's where all the flavor is. Fried onion. The mint. Very nice
12:22uniform layer of the chopped mint. Same with the cilantro. Nice uniform layer of chopped cilantro.
12:27I'm going to go in next with my slit sliced green chillies. Not a lot or depending on how spicy
12:33you
12:33want it, you can go in with more. I like my biryani nice and spicy. A lot of freshness and
12:38really
12:39controlled heat. Ginger juliennes. The ginger is going to provide heat, a very comforting heat at the back
12:45of your throat. Our jhol. One little nice spoon of it. All of this is going to create steam and
12:51that's
12:51what's going to help the biryani complete its cooking process. And we repeat the same process again. We go in
12:57with our
12:58this is all about repetition. So what I'm also doing when I'm putting the chicken is I'm really swirling
13:02it in the sauce, getting it nice and evenly coated with that beautiful rich thick sauce that we have
13:08with the yogurt and just with the chicken juices. That is literally what's going to add body to your
13:13biryani. Spoon it over the chicken, spoon it in the rice. So the biryani I'm making can easily feed about
13:20four or five people. I like three layers, you can obviously do two. If you have a bigger pot, you
13:24want to go
13:25with four, that's fine also. You want to have a little bit of space just for that steam to evenly
13:30move and distribute throughout the pot. Do not mix this right now, your time to mix will come. The whole
13:35point of doing this right now is to build the layers. You're going to mix it up when you serve
13:39it. If you mix this up right now, the chicken is not completely cooked, the rice is not completely
13:43cooked. And now for the fun part, this is the lid for the dutch oven. I'm going to put this
13:50on and the
13:51whole point of now is to create a dough seal right around the edge. When I'm rolling the dough, I
13:57just
13:57want to make sure that I get a long even strand. Something I like to do personally is like literally
14:02go
14:03outwards. So I start off in the middle and I just put gentle pressure, just allowing the dough to
14:09stretch with my rolling. I have a little bowl with water in it and what I'm going to do is
14:14I'm
14:14literally just going to dip my fingers and just run it around the edge of the pot and the water
14:20kind
14:20of ensures that the dough sticks to it. And it's just like a little trick that I learned. I've realized
14:25that when you put water around the edge, it really seals it up super nice. And what I'm doing is
14:29I'm
14:29literally just like putting it on the circumference of the pot. Perfect. Nice and even. My lid goes
14:40right on top of that. I can just press it a little bit. Pop this in the oven at 325
14:47degrees Fahrenheit
14:48for about 30 to 35 minutes. It's been cooking for the last 30 to 35 minutes. I'm very happy with
14:53it.
14:54The dough has completely firmed up, which means that as the dough cooked, it ensured a really
15:00foolproof way of the steam not escaping the spot. Be very careful because this is a Dutch oven so it
15:06is going to be ripping hot.
15:10If you saw that poof of steam coming out of the biryani, you know you did your job correctly.
15:14All you have to do now is literally take a spoon, fluff it up and serve and see all the
15:18different
15:19layers and how the biryani came together. It's just the perfect consistency. The rice is not breaking.
15:25I can still see the steam escaping. Ready to start plating this now. So of course biryani equal
15:31parts of chicken and rice. So whenever I eat a biryani at home or even at restaurants across the
15:36world, the most traditional accompaniment for a biryani is raita. The way I like to make it is just
15:40by whisking yogurt, some salt, some cumin powder and then just putting chopped cucumbers and mint inside it.
15:45Biryani and in general, all rice preparations back in India meant to be eaten with your hands.
15:50There's something really very comforting about shredding into the meat and the rice with your
15:56hands and that's exactly what I'm going to do. Don't let anyone tell you anything otherwise.
15:59Literally just taking some of the chicken, some of the rice, making sure I get those fried onions,
16:05make sure that I get those slit green chilies.
16:09That is perfect. I'm not going to lie about this. It took time, took a lot of patience and a
16:15lot of
16:15persistence, but it's so worth it. If you're entertaining people and if you put this on the
16:20dining table, I don't think anyone's going to leave unhappy. It shows in the final product and
16:24I feel biryani is one of those dishes that is a true example of labor of love.
Comments