Cuisine: Tamil Nadu
Category: Lunch
Prep: 30 min
Cook: 60 min
Serves: 4
Difficulty: Hard
🍗 Non-Vegetarian
Classic Tamil Nadu biryani — country chicken cooked in seeraga samba rice with aromatic whole spices.
Ingredients
- - 2 cups seeraga samba rice
- - 500g country chicken
- - 1/2 cup thick yogurt
- - 3 large onions
- - 2 tomatoes
- - 4 tbsp oil
- - 2 tbsp ginger-garlic paste
- - Whole spices (bay leaf, cardamom, cinnamon, cloves)
- - Fresh mint and coriander
- - Saffron in warm milk
- - Salt to taste
Method
- Marinate chicken: Mix 750g chicken with 1 cup yogurt, 1 tbsp ginger-garlic paste, 1 tsp red chilli powder, half tsp turmeric, 1 tsp garam masala and salt. Marinate 2 hours.
- Make Chettinad spice powder: Dry roast 1 tsp peppercorns, 1 tsp fennel seeds, 2 cloves, 1 cinnamon piece and 3 dried red chillies. Grind fine.
- Fry birista: Slice 3 large onions thinly and deep fry until very dark brown. Drain on paper.
- Parboil basmati rice: Wash 2.5 cups basmati rice. Soak 20 minutes. Boil in salted water with whole spices for 7 minutes. Drain at 70% cooked.
- Cook chicken base: Heat 3 tbsp oil. Add 3 chopped tomatoes and cook 8 minutes. Add Chettinad spice powder and marinated chicken. Cook 10 minutes.
- Layer: Spread the chicken as the base. Add rice on top. Add birista, fresh mint, coriander and 3 tbsp ghee.
- Add saffron milk: Drizzle saffron milk (pinch of saffron in 3 tbsp warm milk) over the rice.
- Seal and dum cook: Seal pot tightly and cook on very low heat 30-35 minutes.
- Rest: Rest covered 10 minutes after turning off heat.
- Serve: Chettinad biryani has a distinct pepper and spice flavour. Serve with raita and onion salad.