Pathani Chicken Biryani - cooking recipe

Ingredients

500 g chicken
2 potatoes, cut into 4 pieces
1 kg basmati rice, soaked for 1 hour
4 onions, sliced
1 teaspoon dhaniya powder (coriander)
1 teaspoon cumin powder
1 teaspoon chili powder
2 tablespoons ginger paste
2 tablespoons garlic paste
4 -5 tomatoes, pureed
100 g yogurt
4 cloves
1 big cinnamon stick
2 bay leaves
4 cardamom pods
8 black bell peppers (kali mirch)
1 teaspoon black cumin seeds (shah zeera)
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 tomatoes, sliced
2 tablespoons finely chopped coriander
2 tablespoons finely chopped mint leaves
salt
4 tablespoons oil or 4 tablespoons dadla ghee
2 pinches orange food coloring

Preparation

Marinate chicken for 4 hrs with ginger-garlic paste, yogurt, dhaniya powder, cumin powder and chilli powder, lemon juice and salt.
Heat the ghee in a deep wok/kadhai/handi. Dalda ghee gives better aroma than oil, so it is more preferable.
Throw in shah zeera, cardamoms, cloves, bay leaves, cinnamon stick.
As the garam masalam begins to crackle, add sliced onions and fry till golden brown.
Take out a big spoonful of the golden onions and keep it aside.
Add the marinated chicken to the onions in the kadhai and fry for 5 minutes.
Then add pureed tomatoes and fry till oil separates, stirring occasionally.
Cook rice till it is only 3/4th cooked.
Take a small part of the 3/4th cooked rice and mix it with the food colouring.
In a large vessel, make layers of rice and the cooked chicken.
Spread in the coloured rice, coriander-mint leaves and the separated brown onions.
Sprinkle little water on the top rice layer and cover and cook on low flame, till the rice is fully done.
You can put some burning coal over the lid of the vessel, so that the biryani is cooked from both the sides, top and bottom.
Serve hot.