Santosh’s Chicken Biryani
This aromatic and super flavorful Chicken Biryani Recipe will become your favorite rice recipe of all times. Follow this step by step recipe to make perfect, restaurant style biryani at home every single time.
Servings: 6
Calories: 554kcal
Ingredients
- 1.5 to 2 lbs Chicken See notes
- 2 big Onions chopped
- 1 tablespoon Ginger garlic paste
- 1 tablespoon Yogurt
- ¼ teaspoon Turmeric
- Salt to taste
- 1 teaspoon Red chilli powder 4-5 green chillies (See notes)
- 5 Cloves
- 4 Green cardamom pods cracked open
- 1 Cinnamon stick
- ½ teaspoon Shahi Jeera See notes
- 4-5 Bay leaves
- ½ cup Cashews
- ½ cup Cilantro finely chopped
- Few Strands of saffron (optional) soak in a tablespoon of warm water or milk
- 2 cups Basmati Rice
- 1 tablespoon Lemon juice
- 1 tablespoon Garam masala See notes
- 5 tablespoon Vegetable oil
- 4 Eggs hard-boiled and then cut in half (optional)
Instructions
Step 1: Marinating the Chicken
- Take a pan and put 5 tbsps of vegetable oil (absolutely no olive oil)
- Once oil is hot put half teaspoon of shahi jeera
- Add cinnamon half inch and cloves
- Add chopped onions immediately (to avoid burning of the spices)
- Add turmeric and saute onions until transparent
- Add 1 tablespoon of ginger garlic paste and keep sautéing the onions until brown
- Add chicken to the fried onion and mix thoroughly
- Then Grind cashews very fine and add the cashew powder to the mixture
- Add salt to taste, red chilli powder (1tsp) based on taste and garam masala
- Add half cup yogurt to the marinade and mix thoroughly
- Add lime or lemon juice
- Keep mixing thoroughly so all spices and chicken are marinated
- Keep the marinade aside for one hour at least. The marinade should look something like this. The difficult part of the biryani is over.
Step 2: Cooking of rice in a separate container
- In a separate deep container, add 1 teaspoon veg oil and a pinch of shahi jeera
- Fry the jeera for 30 secs, add 4 cups of water with a pinch of salt and allow it to boil
- Wash 2 cups of rice thoroughly and add in boiling water. Keep stirring until 80% cooked (about 7-8 minutes).
- Towards the end add bay leaves
- After the rice is cooked keep it aside, don’t mix it too much as you might break the rice and make it sticky
Step 3: Layering the Biryani
- Take a shallow container/pot and add a tablespoon of ghee/clarified butter. Transfer the chicken marinade from step 1 into the shallow container. The clarified butter will reduce burning of the chicken and also releases good flavor when the chicken is cooking.
- Layer rice on top of the marinated chicken and slow cook it on medium. Drizzle the saffron water if using.
- Now here the chicken is going to get cooked and release all the flavor steam that gets trapped in the rice. We have to make sure to cover the pot tightly so that no steam escapes. This is very important as this tight seal and aromatic steam is going to cook the chicken at the bottom
Step 4
- After few minutes (20 mins to half hour), the steam escapes from the gaps in the lid and the pan. This tells you that the chicken is cooked and the biryani is done. Some parts of the chicken at the bottom might be a little burnt but that’s ok it adds to the taste. To check if the chicken is cooked as you prefer take a spoon and dig deep to get to the chicken piece and taste it.
Step 5: Garnishing the biryani
- Red onions: finely sliced half onion
- Minced Ciltantro
- Eggs (4 hard boiled. Sliced in half)
- Cashew (4-5 pcs.)
- In 1 tablespoon oil saute the onion until golden brown
- Add cashews and eggs and saute for 1 min
Notes
White meat or any cuts of the chicken. Thighs are preferable because they have more fat. If you can get the whole chicken and cut them that would be good too. The whole chicken might add more flavor because of different parts of chicken but requires more work.
Shahi Jeera is not same as cumin seeds but if you cannot find shahi jeera you can use regular cumin seeds.
You can use any chicken spice powder (E.g, M.D.H or Badshah chicken curry powder) instead of garam masala available in any Indian grocery store. Santosh prefers M.D.H. brand
Getting the right consistency for rice is very tricky. If you think you over cooked the rice, transfer the cooked biryani on to a cookie sheet and broil it for few minutes until the top layer of rice becomes crispy
Nutrition
Calories: 554kcal | Carbohydrates: 59g | Protein: 30g | Fat: 22g | Saturated Fat: 4g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 9g | Monounsaturated Fat: 7g | Trans Fat: 0.1g | Cholesterol: 167mg | Sodium: 1224mg | Potassium: 637mg | Fiber: 2g | Sugar: 2g | Vitamin A: 369IU | Vitamin C: 2mg | Calcium: 71mg | Iron: 3mg
