Chicken Biryani

Ingredients

• 500 g basmati rice
• 900 g bone-in chicken thighs
• 250 g natural yoghurt
• 40 g ginger, grated
• 6 garlic cloves, crushed
• 2 tsp garam masala
• 1 tsp turmeric
• 2 tsp Kashmiri chilli powder
• 3 onions, very finely sliced
• a large pinch of saffron
• 60 ml warm milk
• 6 cardamom pods
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 2 bay leaves
• a handful of mint
• a handful of coriander
• 80 g ghee

Method

1. Marinate the chicken

   Mix the chicken with the yoghurt, ginger, garlic and ground spices and plenty of salt. Leave for at least an hour, ideally overnight.

   1 h

2. Fry the onions

   Fry the sliced onions in the ghee slowly until deep brown and crisp. This takes twenty-five minutes and cannot be rushed — burnt onions are bitter, pale ones add nothing. Reserve half for the top.

   25 min

3. Parboil the rice

   Boil the rice with the whole spices in heavily salted water for exactly five minutes — it must be seriously undercooked, because it finishes steaming in the pot. Drain.

   5 min

4. Steep the saffron

   Crumble the saffron into the warm milk and leave to bloom.

5. Layer

   Spread the marinated chicken and half the onions in a heavy pot, top with the rice, then the remaining onions, herbs and saffron milk trickled over in streaks — you want patches of white, yellow and brown, not a uniform colour.

6. Dum cook

   Seal the pot tightly with foil and a lid, cook on a high heat for five minutes to get the steam going, then on the lowest possible heat for forty minutes. Do not lift the lid. Rest ten minutes before opening.

   45 min