Hyderabadi chicken biryani

This one is  not  from my moms  diary  but  its  from my aunts , thats is  my  moms  sister (Sheela)  I call her Maa. .She is  an expert in cooking biryani and   i am one  of  her countless fan  her biryani has. Maa dose it  with  so ease and that makes  me  thinks that  preparing biryani shouldnt be tough and that is  what made me  try this .Intially i was not very good  at  it  but now  i love  cooking  and serving biryani .Thanks  to maa  who constantly encourages me to cook specially biryani. Thanks Maa.
Comming to  biryani  there  are  numerous variation and  all the  variety differs  and  i  think  king of biryani is hyderabadi biryani. The  way  the aroma , rice and the meat  gets blended is real wonderfull. All those who have tasted hyderabadi biryani will surely vouch for  it , its  very royal  and very aromatic. There are two types of biryani , first being the kachi (raw)dum (slow cooked in the steam )biryani , and  the other one being the paccki  (cooked)biryani . The  first  where in the meat (chicken or lamb) is  raw and  gets cooked in the process, the second one per say is  where we used boiled or cooked meat.The  Kacchi  or raw biryani  is very  famous  but  both taste good.
Todays  menu is kacchi (raw) chicken biryani  with raitha .

Item Chicken Biryani
source : Maa (my aunt)
Time : 1hrs 30min.

Ingredients ::

• 2 cups Baskmati rice 
• 1lb chicken de-skined

 Step 1:   frying onions :

• 3-4  big onions  sliced finely and  deep fried  to  brown in colour.
• oil

  Step 2 : Marination  of chicken

• 500gms of chicken
• 2 cups  curd 
• 4 -5 tsp of freshly ground ginger garlic paste
• whole garam masala ( 1inch cinnamaon stick, 4-5 cardamon,1 big black cardamon, 5-7 cloves, bay  leaf . shahi-jeera, aniseed )
•  1-1/12 tsp garam masala powder
• 1tsp of coriander powder,
• 1tsp of chilli powder,
• Salt 
• Turmeric
• 1 medium sized tomato
• 1 bunch of mint leaves ( 8-12 strands )
• 1 bunch of cilantro (coriander leaves)
• 7-10 green chillies 
• lime  juice  from  3-4  medium sized limes 
• Saffron colour 
•  Fried onions. ( half  of from the step 1 )
• oil . (can use the same oil used for  frying)

 Take the chicken in a  big vessel (the vessel u  want to cook biryani) and add all the above ingredients and mix well. Crush  the fried onions and  add  it to the marinate. Cool the oil  that wass used to fry onions and add about 50-100 ml of it .  keep it marinated  for 30-40 mins.

 Step 3 : Preparing the Rice 

• 2 cups  basmati rice (soked for 30 mins prior use )
•  1-1/12 cup  water  ( chicken stock can be  used , or coconut  milk can  be  used instead of water )
•  salt 
•  whole garam masala 
• Mint leaves 
• coriander leaves 
• saffron color
• 3-4 spoon of oil

  Wash and  Soak the  basmati  rice  30 mins  prior to the use in a  pressure cooker ( u can opt for not using the cooker and  cook in a  regular vessel  but   cooked in a tradional way , where u have  to keep monitoring for the rice  to be cooked  upto 60-70% , we  donot want the rice to be completely cooked )  cooking in a  pressure  cooker makes the process easy and  fast. To the  rice  add 1-1 1/2 cup of water or chicken stock . T;o  it add the whole garam masala , mint leaves coriander leaves and salt . add a pinch of saffron colour. Keep it on medium flame with out the pressure weight .Allow the  rice to  cook only 70%. Put the flame off when the steam starts gushing out wait for couple of minutes and then open the cooker.

Step 4 : Layering the rice.

• Saffron colour  diluted in  about 4-5 spoon ful of water or  milk.
• lime juice from 2-3  lime
• 50 ml of oil
• mint and criander leaves 
• Fried onions.

 Once the rice is  ready , carefully layer it on the marinated chicken. Top it  with saffron colour , lime juice . mint and coriander leaves,  oil  and fried onions  . Close the vessel with the tight glass lid so that the steam dose not escape if u dont have a  vessel with  glass lid the  u can use regular lid but u have seal the lid with chapathi dough so  that the steam dosent escape and Keep the biryani on medium flame .

Step 5 : Cooking the biryani

This is the most important step . Here is when the glass lid comes in handy , when the biryani get  cooked on medium heat , u can see the vapour droplets  forming on the glass lid (which will take  around 15-20 mins)  leave  it  in the same  stage for  another  5-10 mins  and then  reduce the flame  now keep a  griddle  underneath  your  biryani vessel ( i forgot  to take the pic will update it  soon )  and leave it to be slowly cooked  for another 20-30 mins . If  u  dont have the the glass lid then  what u can  do all the checking  manually , check after 20- 30 mins  and  then  keep the griddle  under the  biryani vessel. The  time  will differ with the quantity of biryani.. Once its done its ready to be served .

Enjoy the royal aromatic delicious biryani with raitha.