Basic Chicken Biriyani - Rajam's recipe

 For most Indians, biriyani is an emotion. There are so many different varieties of biriyani in India and the one you had growing up generally ends up being the winner. The reason is obviously it brings back so many fun memories, and secondly, it is a taste that gets embedded in the ridges and grooves of your brain. Nothing anyone makes is even remotely close to that taste that you know is possible and you strive hard to find it everywhere. I found many Indian restaurants in Melbourne cook the rice and the meat seperately and then layer it in and call it biriyani. Of course it made me mad because for me the meat and rice must be cooked together for it to have the status of biriyani.  Yes, biriyani definitely has a status, if the meat and rice are cooked together in a delicious conglomeration, then the status is definitely at the top.

The trick to getting a perfectly cooked rice and meat dish is 1) excellent quality biriyani rice, 2) infinite patience and 3) careful measuring.  I use India Gate "classic basmati rice extra long" because it never fails me. India Gate basmati rice cooks into a fine long grain, fluffy and beautiful and I know the ratio is 1 cup of rice means two cups of liquid. 

My mother used to make biriyani at home for special occassions and that is what I have tried to create today for you. This is not a very hot dish, but by all means reduce the number of green chillies if you feel it might be too hot for you.  The red chilli powder I have used is Kashmiri chilli powder  which is not hot. 

Also, my mother never used to marinate and seal the chicken when she made chicken biriyani.  However, the chicken she used were organic and small sized where as the ones I see here are huge and have very little flavour - even if they are supposedly organic.  So that is a variation that helps with increasing the flavours of this dish. 

Lets get to the recipe without further ado!  This recipe calls for marination of the chicken and I do it the day before I am planning to make the biriyani.

Kothu Parotta - Minced Roti

My grandparents had seven children – they in turn had one, two or three kids of their own.  Summer holidays in my grandparents’ house meant that at any time there could be at least 10 kids under the age of 15.  How my grandparents managed all of us I do not know.  All I know is those were the best memories of my younger self.  My grandmother Ella Chellam who we all called patti was a wonderful cook and very resourceful too.  My uncle Rajan mama used to bring back game meat from his hunting expeditions and not a bit would be wasted.  As a child we learnt to eat everything and appreciate different tastes and textures.  Most of my food is intimately woven with memories of patti and the good times.

Once in a way we would get a treat from the local Azad Hotel that was very famous in those days for its kothu parotta.  The excitement of unwrapping the banana leaf parcels and getting our fingers stuck into those tasty morsels cannot be described.  Even now, when you walk in the streets at dusk you can hear the "ding ding" of metal spatulas against a large metal wok mincing the meat, the roti and scrambled eggs, tossing and micing at the same time. I wanted my family to experience this at home and this dish is much loved by my family and a very welcome addition to picnics in summer.