Lovina's Chicken Biryani- Inspired by Karen Pereira

Ingredients

4 cups Basmati Rice
10-12 Chicken legs or pieces
2 Potatoes
6 Onions
1 Tomato
1 Packet Shaan Bombay Biryani masala
or put your own spices
½ cup yogurt
5 peppercorns
½ tsp Jeera
¼ tsp garam masala
3 cardamom whole
Ghee 5 spoons
Salt to taste

Method:

Wash the chicken and keep aside. Take a hundy and heat some ghee (3 spoons), fry 6 cut onions till medium brown. Keep aside half the onions. Add chicken pieces and slightly fry. Add 1 cut tomato, add Shaan biryani masala 1 packet or little less if you don’t want very spicy, ½ cup yogurt and fry a little, add salt to taste and also the potato pieces and cook well.

In a separate hundy, put 2 tsps ghee, add some jeera (1/2 tsp) and fry. Add some peppercorns (5), 3-4 cardamoms and 1/4 tsp garam masala and add basmatic rice and salt. Fry it a little and then add double the quantity of water and cook partly till almost done. Preferably strain the water. Add colour to the rice if you like.

Take out half the rice, spread the cooked chicken curry which should be almost dry on top of the rice, then spread a layer of rice and a layer of chicken curry again and on top, the rest of the rice. On top of the rice, spread the fried onions which were kept aside and cover the hundy well and keep on slow flame till the rice is cooked well and it steams.

Serve hot with raita.