Chicken Biryani Disaster

Chicken Biryani haste makes waste!

This dish could have been good. Good biryani is a thing to behold, a dish worthy of long cooking or long traveling. But it has to be respected, there aren't any cheats. no shortcuts can be taken. This is the story of one such short cut. What I'm trying to say is that Biryani has approximately the same gestational period as an baby so it's more of a date night thing.

It started out well, we went to the Indian store and bought nice saffron, we marinated the chicken for 24 hours, assuring that it would be tasty and full of flavor. We even soaked our basmati rice for the full hour suggested before cooking. Our biggest mistake was to try to cook Biryani on a weekday. a good biryani takes 3-4 hours to be made right, of course our cookbook said it would take an hour and 45 minutes. but we've since discovered that this author is amazingly bad at math.

Here is the recipe as we should have done it

For the Marinade 
3Tb chopped garlic
3 inches of Ginger sliced thin against the grain
10-12 fresh mint leaves
1/4 cup packed cilantro
2 fresh green peppers
2 Tb fresh squeezed lime juice
2 cup yogurt
1 Tb Homestyle Garam Masala
Salt (1-0.5 T estimated)
1 whole skinned chicken cut into pieces (3-4 lbs)

For the Rice
1.5 cup Basmati Rice
5 cups water
7 green cardamom pods
1 cinnamon stick
4 bay leaves
4 whole cloves
4 whole mace blades
2 teaspoons cumin seeds
1 C water

For the garnish

2 Tb chopped mint
4 Tb chopped cilantro
1 teas Saffron Threads soaked in 1.4 C milk
2 Tb almonds (toasted)
Crispy fried onion (I would highly suggest buying these at a Indian grocery store or replacing with French's fried onions like for green bean casserole it's pretty much the only short cut possible in this recipe)
         3 Tb ghee
         2 Onions thinly sliced
         Makes about 1/2 cup fried onions

First the marinade: combine all of the ingredients for the marinade except for the chicken in a blender or food processor. If it doesn't all fit, you don't have to add all of the yogurt it can be stirred in later. After everything is well blended into a paste pour it over the chicken and mix it well. Put it into the refrigerator overnight or up to a few days.

On the day of cooking (this shouldn't be a weeknight unless you have 3-4 hours to devote to making this dish. Wash the basmati rice several times then soak it in cold tap water. This should soak for 30-60 minutes. After it is done soaking let it sit and drain for 15 minutes.

For the initial cooking of the rice we cook it like pasta in an excess of water. Bring 5 cups of water to a boil and add the 2 Cardamom pods, 1 stick cinnamon,  2 bay leaves, 2 cloves, a generous pinch of salt, and the drained rice. We're going to parboil the rice for 5 minutes until it is approximately half cooked. Drain the rice and discard the spices.

If you are going to make your own fried onions, add 3 Tb ghee to an oven safe large pot such as a dutch oven and fry your sliced onions for 8-10 minutes until they are crispy and golden brown. Add to this oil the rest of the whole spices (5 cardamom, 2 bay leaves, 2 cloves) and the mace and cumin. Stir until the spices are fragrant and start to change colors.

Add the marinated chicken to the spices and cook until all of the marinade is dried up and you can start coloring the chicken. (this is a very important step called Bhunao). If you don't do this most of the spices will die ignominiously and be completely flavorless until you bite into a rogue cardamom pod, plus there is a huge amount of liquid in the marinade which will turn your flavorless biryani into flavorless rice soup. This we learned from experience. It will take 30-40 minutes to reduce out all the water in the marinade. Take your time and do it right, unless you like flavorless rice soup.

When your chicken is browned and fully bhunao'ed add the last cup of water and simmer for 10 minutes.

Sprinkle the chopped mint and cilantro on top of the chicken, then layer the parboiled rice on top of it. Finally drizzle the saffron.milk mixture on top of the rice. Seal the pot with tinfoil and put on a heavy lid. Traditionally this is sealed with a flour and water dough to be totally air tight. Bake it in a 350 degree oven for 30 minutes.

After it is done fluff the rice with a fork and serve with fried onions and chopped almonds. If you happen to get this one right, please do feel very proud of yourselves. This is not an easy meal to make.

~NOM!