Chicken biryani is one of the most delicious things you can eat, and has lots of flavour due to added spices. It's quite a simple dish, though the long list of ingredients might put you off. But it's really easy to make if you have all things at hand.
This recipe I took from the book "Chicken: over 400 recipes for all occasions".
Ingredients:
275 g (1,5 cup) basmati rice, rinsed
1/2 tsp salt
3 onions, sliced
675 g chicken breast fillets, skinned and cubed
3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 tsp fresh root ginger, grated
juice of 1 lemon (or 50 ml concentrated juice)
4 tomatoes, sliced
2 tbsp chopped fresh coriander leaves
150 ml natural yogurt
spices***
toasted flaked almonds and natural yogurt to serve
***1/2 tsp saffron strands, soaked in 2 tbsp hot milk
*** Spices for the rice:
1 cinnamon stick
2-3 whole cloves
***Spices for the chicken:
1/4 tsp ground cloves
5 cardamom pods, seeds removed and crushed
1/4 tsp hot chilli powder
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground coriander
1/2 tsp black pepper
Bring a pan of water to boil and add the rice, salt, cardamom pods, cloves and cinnamon stick.
Boil for 2 minutes and then drain, leaving the whole spices in rice.
Heat the oil in a deep pan and fry the onions for 8 minutes, or until browned.
Add the cubed chicken followed by all the ground spices, the garlic, ginger and lemon juice. Stir-fry for 5 minutes.
Lay the sliced tomatoes on top of the chicken.
Sprinkle over the fresh coriander.
Spoon over the natural yogurt.
Top with a drained rice. Drizzle the saffron and milk over the rice and pour 150 ml of water.
Cover tightly and cook on a low heat for 1 hour or until the rice is cooked (pay special attention on rice on the bottom, since it gets cooked faster than the top). Remove from the heat.
Mix and transfer to a warmed serving platter.
Remove the whole spices from the rice. Garnish with toasted almonds and fresh coriander, and serve with extra natural yogurt.
Bon Appetit!
