Chicken Dum Biryani

Chicken Dum Biryani Recipe is one of the best ways to make biryani and mind you, it is full of very distinct flavours. The most important of which comes from the very many spices like cardamom, cinnamon, cloves that are added to it. These spices give the biryani a tempting aroma that can be smelt from metres away. One of the major aspects of cooking biryani is that meat should be marinated well. The more you will marinate the meat, the more it will get tender, juicy and soft to eat. The biryani is everything that royalty is made of! It makes for a wonderful dish whenever you feel like showing off your cooking skills.

The rice is nicely cooked separately from the chicken. Once the masala and chicken are prepared, the rice is added to the chicken to form beautiful alternate layers. It looks like a dream and also tastes like one. The Dum part of this Chicken Biryani is extremely important. That is where all the flavours of the biryani come together and develop. Chicken Dum Biryani is best served with some raita and salad. It makes for a royal dinner and one can never have enough. So, if you are planning on surprising your loved ones with a celebration of flavours then here is the chicken biryani recipe that you need to make!

Ingredients

• 1 kg Chicken , with bone
• 4 cups Basmati rice
• 3 Onions , sliced thin
• 4 Tomatoes , finely chopped
• 4 Green Chillies , slit at the center
• 20 gram Ginger , ground to paste
• 20 gram Garlic , ground to paste
• 2 tablespoon Red Chilli powder
• 2 tablespoon Coriander Powder (Dhania)
• 1 tablespoon Garam masala powder
• 1/2 cup Coriander (Dhania) Leaves , finely chopped
• 1/2 cup Mint Leaves (Pudina) , finely chopped
• Oil , as needed
• Ghee , as needed
• Salt , to taste
• 1/2 cup Hung Curd (Greek Yogurt)
• 1 tablespoon Red Chilli powder
• 1 teaspoon Turmeric powder (Haldi)
• Salt , as required

Step by Steps

Step 1

In a blender or mixer jar, add all the ingredients needed for marination + salt. Grind coarsely.

Step 2

Heat oil in a heavy-bottomed pan with a tight-fitting lid. This is the same pan we will use to cook the dum biryani.

Step 3

Add the sliced onions and keep flame at medium-low. Stir frequently to ensure even frying (ignore that the pans are different, I made vegetable dum biryani and chicken dum biryani simultaneously and did a bunch of prep work in conjunction).

Step 4

While the onions are frying, keep water in a large pot for cooking the rice. Bring the water to a rolling boil and add 1 tsp caraway seeds (shahjeera), 2 bay leaves, 1 tsp oil, and some salt.

Step 5

Add the soaked rice to this, Cook on medium-high heat until the rice is 3/4 cooked. When you take out one grain and bite into it, it shouldn’t be mushy or cooked fully.

Step 6

While the rice is cooking, keep an eye on the onions and drain when they are fully dark brown.

Step 7

Step 8

Now, in the same pan used for frying the onions, top up the remaining 1/4 cup ghee (see notes). Add the marinated chicken pieces and mix well. Let this cook for 30 seconds. Then add the freshly ground whole spices spices or biryani masala and fry for another minute or so. Add 1 tbsp each of chopped coriander leaves and mint leaves on top. Mix well to combine.

Step 9

Layer the cooked rice over the chicken. Yes, the chicken is still raw, our dum cooking will cook it perfectly in about 15-20 minutes so this is fine. Cook on very low flame for 15-20 minutes.

Step 10

Once done, uncover and gently combine the layers so that the spices get mixed with the rice.

Tips

Adjust chilli powder and green chilli to your taste when marinating the chicken. This amount makes a reasonably spicy biryani which suits our palates. The other spices I have used is also on the heavy side so adjust accordingly for a milder flavour.

– The amount of ghee in this recipe is generous. I usually add this much to ensure the biryani doesn’t get burned at the bottom during dum cooking and also so it stores well. You can add lesser or even add 1/2 ghee + 1/2 oil.

– Do not skip soaking the rice. Soaking basmati rice ensures that it absorbs water during the soaking process and not too much during the cooking process which ensures more evenly cooked, firmer rice grains that remain separate. The best basmati rice for biryani, in my experience, is Kohinoor or India Gate.

– Do not skip the fried onions. It’s absolutely essential to bring the right flavour to dum biryani or any biryani for that matter.

– Make sure to season the rice with salt when cooking it. This way you can ensure the biryani will be more uniformly salted.

– Add some lime juice at the end for some sourness. My chicken dum biryani recipe doesn’t include tomatoes but you can add some to the vegetables while they cook if you prefer.

– Do not skimp on coriander and mint leaves. Buy them fresh and use generously.