Madras Chicken Biryani

Who wouldn’t love this plate of goodness for a meal?

There are many different methods of biryani preparations in various parts of India. At my place (Chennai), mostly all the families make biryani in pressure cooker. I think this is the fastest method of doing biryani.

This is the way we do it back at our home town in Chennai. After marriage and coming here I have tried doing some other types of biryanies, such as dum biryani, biryani in rice cooker etc… among all these biryanies this pressure cooker method is pulled together very fast….


Taking a Break:
I am going on a vacation to India for 2 months.... A lot of things are going around... packing and stuff....So will not be able to post and comment regularly. Till then enjoy blogging.... Bye....

I am sending this recipe to Ayeesha of  "Taste of pearl city" for the event  Iftar Moments Hijri 1431

Ingredients : 

Chicken - 1 lb (cut into small pieces)
Basmati rice - 1 cup
Onion - 1 big size (cut lengthwise)
Tomato - 1 medium size (cut into cubes)
Green chills - 2 (cut lengthwise)
Fresh ginger garlic paste - 2 tablespoon
Fresh mint leaves - ½ cup packed
Red chili powder - ¼ teaspoon (my chili powder in very hot)
Turmeric powder - 1 pinch
Ghee - 1 tablespoon
Salt
Lemon juice - 1 teaspoon or yogurt - 1 tablespoon
Saffron - 1 pinch - (Soak saffron in 2 teaspoon of hot milk)

For Tadka:
Oil - 2 tablespoon
Cardamom - 4
Clove - 2 to 3
Cinnamon - 2 inch piece
Star anise - 1
Mace - 1
Bay leaves - 2 big

Procedure : 

Wash the basmati rice and soak for not more than 10 minutes.

In a pressure cooker heat the oil in medium heat. Then add all the Tadka ingredients except the bay leaves. After they splutter add the bay leaves.

Then add the onions, tomato and green chilies and saute them. Then add the ginger garlic paste and saute it for some time. Through in the mint leaves.

Now put the chicken with red chili powder, turmeric powder and salt and fry for some time. All the masala should be mixed on the chicken peaces.

In the mean while heat ghee on a frying pan and add the soaked rice.(strain the water, It should not have any water while frying). Fry the rice for 2 minutes or until all the rice is heated up. (Do not over fry the rice)

The chicken in the pressure cooker should be cooked almost 75%. Now measure exactly 2 cups of water and pour it to the cooker and let it boil. To the boiling water add the fried rice and squeeze the lemon juice. Taste the water for seasoning.

Now close the pressure cooker and increase the heat to high. Allow the cooker to give one whistle sound. Then turn off the stove. If it is a electric burner stove, after u get one whistle from the pressure cooker immediately move the cooker to another cooler burner.(this is because that we all know that the electric burner will be burning hot after we switch it off also).

Now wait until the presser is fully shut off from the cooker.(This will take some time) Then open the cooker and pour the saffron milk in different places on top the biryani (so that when u toss the rice, some rice will be orange in color and the rest will be yellow because of the turmeric powder).

Carefully toss the biryani without the breaking the rice too much and serve it hot with raita….


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