Biriyani is a spicy rice dish very common in India and Pakistan. It is a cultural food and often served as a main course for parties common home and wedding occasions. The biriyani is a dish that is full of flavours of different spices including red chilli powder, cumin seed, black pepper corn, curry leaves, bay leaves and ofcourse mixed spice, and on the other hand tomatoes, onions and chicken make the rice even more delicious.

Rice is first boiled and put aside. Then in a wok, all the spices are fried in a bit of ghee torelease the flavors. Onions chopped are added and after the onions go soft tomatoes are added. then every thing is cooked till a type of very chunky and sort of thick sauce gets created. salt is added with a couple of whole green chillies with chicken peices. hey are cooked till the chiken is cooked properly. Yoghurt is added and the whole thing is put aside. In a large pot, rice is layered , then the spicy chicken curry is layered on the rice, and this process is continued till all the rice and the spicy mixture is used up. Then the rice is put on low heat for 'Dum' which means that the rice will be kept on very very low heat to release the steam inside the pot so the flavours get into all parts of the rice. Make sure that the rice pot is covered tightly. When putting the rice for 'dum', put the pot of rice on a flate pan, as this avoids rice in the bottom from getting burnt.

The biriyani dish is served very very hot and steaming, with cold and chilled 'raita', which is plenty of yogurt, with chunks of chopped boiled potatoes, choopes tomatoes, finely chopped onion, a hint of garlic and chopped mint and corriander leaves. The dish is spicy, mouth watering and lovely.

I live in Pakistan and We have many versions of biriyani:

Prawn biriyani: in which prawns are used instead of chicken.

Gosht biriyani: in which meat( beaf, goat meat, lamb) is used instead of chicken.

Sindhi biriyani: Another version of biriyani, it is not too spicy and the procedure differs alittle from the offical biriyani most people make here in south asia (pakistan and india).

Learn more about this author, Sheharyar Shoaib.
Click here to send author comments or questions.

---

Add your voice

Know something about What is Biriyani??
We want to hear your view. Write now!