For the love of Biryani

So this whole blog is going to be about how I make an Awadhi (Lucknowi) biryani. This is not really a formal recipe. If you are looking for an instruction set which you can reproduce without thinking, this is not the place. Don’t make a biryani. Do some yoga, evolve, then come back to the biryani.

I am no recipe writer so I’ll mostly be rambling here, trying to channel my SoC-ish thoughts about biryani into something cohesive. I will also try to make it look professional by adding measurements and probably fail. We’ll see.

We are making biryani for about 12 people. That would need 6lbs of goat and 7 cups (230ml cup) of uncooked aged basmati rice. You could up the rice to 8 or 9 cups too, if you are a rice lover.

Given my current mood, I am guessing it’s going to be a long read. But do read this several times before you start anything ok? Ok.

The most important part of this recipe is you

Pour yourself a plump dram of your favorite whisky. If you don’t drink whisky (but why?) then some wine or beer will do, as long as you feel calm, relaxed and happy. Not coffee though (although I love coffee to death). Coffee will give you a jittery high and then a crash. If you crash, so will the biryani. It’s got to be a beautiful, smooth curve that only fine whisky can afford, methinks.

Alright then, now that you (and I) are smelling the peat (or sherry) in the dram, and your frown has smoothened out a tad bit, here goes.

My Biryani

You see "beriani" (berian [fried]+ birinj[rice]) was a lowly middle eastern food. Pollow/Pilaf was the favored sibling. The thing came to our lovely land, found purpose, and became what it is today. There is no right or wrong way to make it. It is a canvas, so make it your own.

We are making a pakki biryani. Pakki refers to (almost) fully cooked components layered together into a final steam sauna called dum. Dum is the Indian version of slow cooking without loss of steam pressure and very low heat. Pakki styles are prevalent in northern India.

Also, the pakki biryani base is actually a qorma. Qorma is a generic term similar to braising. The alternative to the pakki style is the kacchi style which is prevalent in southern India. In the kacchi (raw) style none of the components are pre-cooked. It’s harder to make and takes years of practice. Pakki style is more forgiving and offers finer controls quite easily.

My biriyani has no greens, no ginger garlic, no mint, no coriander and no onions. No beresta either. Beresta (golden fried onion) is typically a loud flavor. Kacchi style sometimes needs strong spices which in turn needs sweetness from caramelized onions. Also, it lends color.

Awadhi pakki biriyani is smoother, lighter and refined. Much like a Scotch-Bourbon difference. Both are well loved.

Note: Even though I try to make the Lucknowi kind of biriyani, I add in some potatoes because I am a Bengali and that’s how it’s going to be. Deal with it.

The Biryani framework

Before you take my earlier punchline (“It’s a canvas, so make it your own”) too seriously and cook up some “jhol-bhat” and call it your biriyani, let me stop you there. No, you can’t do random shit.

There are some standards around a good biryani.

The end result should be aromatic and flavorful. The rice should be moist and soft but not mushy. Every rice grain should be coated with a fine layer of ghee (not too much) and shouldn’t stick. It’s important to be able to mildly taste the ghee because that captures most of the flavors. The meat should hold form but should be tender and buttery when you bite into it. And if you don’t like the flavor of ghee, then, I am not sure what to tell you. Cook the damn thing in some white oil, and don’t talk to me again.

Salt

You will screw this up and therefore a separate section on it. Salting is an art. You will salt the biryani is three stages. While prepping the meat, while cooking the meat and finally while cooking the rice. These three salting stages should add up to the perfect experience. So, pay extra attention when I describe the salting at each stage (Let’s hope I remember to, because this whisky is too darn good).

Prepping

Prepping is gold boys. You don’t want to hit a warzone with no bullets in the magazine. You prep. You don’t do a “Joy Ma...” (A Bengali's fervent Hail Mary) and plunge into biryani making. The biryani will plunge into you and then you’ll SOS to Uber Eats.

Prep.Powdered-Spices

Lots of spices go into biryani making. Most of these spices are aromatic. All spices are not made the same. A spoon of cardamom from Idukki is equal to several spoons of its Guatemalan cousin. So, it’s hard to tell you how many grams of each because I don’t know where you are sourcing your stuff from. I mix them by smell. And I insist that that is the right way. I use some of my earlier mix as a reference. It has worked so far.

Assuming you are buying your stuff from the local store, and not actually traveling to Idukki, here are some ball-park measurements. This will yield enough for one batch of biryani. But you would want to make 3 times this amount so that you can store and re-use.

• White pepper – 12gm
• Javitri – 8gm
• Jaiphal – 8gm
• Green Cardamom – 40gm
• Kabab Chini – 5gm (Also known as cubeb pepper. Although All Spice can be used too and honestly, I like it better).
• Shahi jeera – 10gm
• Star Anise – 25gm
• Fennel – 15gm
• Cinnamon – 10gm
• Dried rose petals – 5gm
• Coriander powder – 12gm
• Kashmiri chilli powder – 18gm: This is for color. The Mughals would up their Jizya if they saw you doing this. They had no concept of dried chilli until the 1700s. They used pepper for heat. And used Zafran (and maybe Ratan Jot at a later time) for color. They preferred Zafran because it had a milder color and had a fantastic aroma. But I added this anyway because I am not a Mughal dude and Zafran is expensive.
• Turmeric – 5gm
• Daggar phool (stone flower) - 10gm (Its a type of lichen with a very earthy aroma. This is something you probably wont get in the regular Indian store in USA. I suggest ordering it online)

Now smell the masala. Treat it like smelling your favorite perfume. There will be top, middle and base notes. You want your masala to smell cardamom-y (cardamom is king in biriyani). You want it to smell sweet from the Star Anise. Cinnamon and javitri-jaiphal should linger around in the middle somewhere. Daggar phool and coriander should linger towards the end. When you taste it, it should have that slight heat from the pepper.
The rose petals are just for flair and hence optional (being honest here, because the whisky is working its magic). Well I didn't want to berate the rose petal jadu. Just that its a top note, it's extremely light and you quickly lose that smell when you start cooking.

The magic of your biryani lies in this masala combination. Bring out your inner perfumer and experiment with this combination. Make it lighter, make it stronger. Do your thing. This will be your signature. I have merely open sourced a basic structure. Feel free to tweak.

Do not dry roast them before grinding if you intend to store it. See dry roasting makes the spice oils volatile and they release better. So you will need to use them immediately. So it doesn't make sense to release the spice flavors and then store it (duh!).

Prep.Whole spices for mutton (roughly cracked)

• Whole black pepper
• Javitri
• Jaiphal
• Green Cardamom
• Black cardamom
• Kabab Chini
• Shahi jeera
• Star Anise
• Cinnamon
• Dried rose petals (optional)
• Coriander seeds

Prep.Whole spices bundle for rice (roughly cracked)

I am tempted to call it a bouquet garni, but I won’t. I am too proud a Bengali to make this sound legit by appropriating French cooking terms.

• Green cardamom
• Black cardamom
• Bay leaf
• Rose petals

Use a cheesecloth or a tea infuser to bundle in the masala.

Prep.Meat

Buy 6 lbs of fatty goat (good for 10-12 people). Using fatty goat meat is of prime importance preferably from the shoulder (“agla raan”). The pieces of meat have to be large (4 inches or more). Why? Because the meat should retain shape. If you use smaller pieces of meat they will simply lose too much water and become dry, or disintegrate into a lump of fibers. And I will not deign to teach a Bengali how to select the perfect pink succulent mutton. You know what you are doing. Why goat meat? Is that even a question? Sure, cook it with chicken, crow, rat or whatever catches your fancy, but don’t call it biryani.

Prep the meat by blanching it in hot water. Once the impurities float up, drain the water and wash the meat thoroughly with running warm water. Submerge the clean meat in hot water again and add salt. If the water tastes like the sea, you know you have added enough. Then add some plain vinegar. Leave it like this for about 45 minutes.  Drain the water and wash the meat again. Time for some mild marination. 

Hold on, let me get another sip of this whisky (Ardbeg). Ah, there.

Ok so now add few tablespoons of full fat, not bullshit yoghurt, couple of teaspoons of turmeric, a dash of white vinegar, a teaspoon of salt and two tablespoons of kewra water. I was tempted to say “du chipi kewra”. Chipi means bottle-cap in Bengali and is a valid measure of volume for Bengalis.

Let the baby rest overnight (or at least 4 hours). Pop culture says one should add masala at this point but it’s a waste because protein fibers don’t really absorb any masala (there is a raging debate around this though). The vinegar hydrolyses the protein walls and the salt osmoses itself into the meat. The masala (essentially cellulose and spice oils, sticks around not knowing what to do). The turmeric though disinfects the meat.

Prep.Rice

First things first, select your rice. Use a variety that you have used many times before. Because its critical to know when its 80% done. Note that raw Basmati is rather delicate and hard to handle because it can break or become like mush if you don't pay enough attention while cooking. Parboiled (sella) basmati with sufficiently long grains are, in a way, more forgiving because they hold form and come out fluffy without much effort. So screw-up index is pretty low there. Sure, there is a loss of aroma but it's ok because the biryani masala adds enough aroma.

Wash the rice a lot many times in cold water. Use a light hand or it might crack because rice does get soft with water. Wash it until it isn’t cloudy anymore.

Then add whole milk, rose water and leave it alone for a few hours.

Miscellaneous preps

• Soak the 5mg Zafran in 150ml lukewarm water. You should get an absolutely glorious carmine colored tea after about 30 minutes.
• Soak some rose petals in 200ml warm full fat milk.
• Keep some alu-bukharas (dried prunes) ready.
• A couple of small lemons.
• Unsweetened khowa kheer. (Milk solids)
• Kewra water. (You can keep a bottle of rose water too, but you will use it only once, hence not mandatory)
• Mitha ittar. (You will need exactly a drop. So, optional)
• You will need a pot to cook the mutton.
• A biryani pot. You can use the same pot to cook the rice.
• A sieve for draining the rice. Use the same sieve to separate the mutton stock from masala.

Process

And now, the process. Oh boy, how I love it. I mean, everything that I’ll write will sound cliched. Every spice, every ingredient, every process is going to be so incredibly impactful on your senses. It is quite a heady experience, let me tell you that.

Process.Potato

This love of our lives has to be boiled in milk-water. I use Yukon gold potatoes here in USA.

Salt some water until it becomes sea water (3.5% salinity). Peel the potatoes, prick them with a fork and dunk them golden babies in the salt bath. Add whole milk. Add a couple spoonfuls of biriyani masala. Add extra turmeric and Kashmiri chilli powder. About 3 tablespoons of white oil in the water should prevent the boiled potatoes from fraying. And take your time with the boiling. Don’t go Shelby final gear. Let it gently simmer over a period of time.

Once the potatoes are soft enough, take them out. I use a blunt spoon edge to press against the potato to measure the give. Place the boiled potatoes on a plate, drizzle some ghee, some biriyani masala and several bottle caps of rose water. Cover them. Leave them boys be.

Process.Goat

Heat up a kodai/dekchi or any deep wide bottomed pan. Add the ghee. A lot of it. Don’t be shy now. You see, all the flavor of the masala will date the ghee. They love each other. My other half does weigh in on this romcom and I readily give way and pull back on the ghee. Alas, but the vagaries marriage.

Dunk in all the whole masala while the ghee is still not too warm. If you put whole spices in hot ghee, then it doesn’t take Einstein to figure out that it’ll burn. Once the ghee heats up and the crazy good aroma hits you, introduce the mutton.

The mutton will harden up and caramelize a bit. Reduce whatever water the mutton releases and add in copious quantities of the biriyani masala. Keep cooking until the fat separates. Add in some water. Salt until perfection. Then throw in a pinch more.

After 2.5 hours of dum cooking (or use the damn pressure cooker if you will, it’s all good) use a tong to pull out the mutton from the jhol (yes jhol. Alright, stock). Keep them separately on a plate and add a dash of kewra water.

Drain the jhol through a sieve into a bowl so that you rid it of all the cooked whole masala. If the jhol is too watery, reduce it by simmering.

Sanity Check

At this point, you have:

• A plate of perfectly cooked mutton.
• A bowl of silky, red, slightly viscous jhol with flavored ghee floating on top.
• Perfectly flavored and cooked potato.
• Soaked rice.

Process.Rice

You might screw up the salting here, as I have. You have been warned.

Fill a pot of water. Don’t you worry about rice to water ratio because that is irrelevant here. You will be draining the water anyway so the ratio does not matter. Just fill a large pot with water until it is 3/4^th full. Salt the water and drop in the bag of whole masala that you made earlier.

Now how salty should it be? Rather than giving you an exact measurement, let me tell you that it should not be as salty as sea water (35 gms a liter).  I would say 15-20gms/liter is the right measurement, considering that you are using standard table salt. Now unless you are cooking in industrial settings, good luck measuring liters. So, salt the water until it tastes like sea water (or your memory of it), then throw out some of it and add some fresh water back into the pot. Voila!

Those who are the fancy kinds (Fleur de sel, Himalayan salt, Celtic sea salt and what not), just hire me to cook this dish for you. Some of your money becomes mine.

Wait for the water to come to a boil and the pour in the rice as well as the milk it’s been soaking in.

Then stare at the rice. Yes, I mean it. Stare at the rice for the next 15 minutes so that you stop the flame the moment its 80% done. Too much and you are screwed. How do you know its 80% done? Take a rice grain on the back of a spoon and press against it. If it breaks, it’s not there yet. If it just about squishes with some give then its right there. Anything more, start over because your biryani is going to be a gunky mess.

Once you have determined that the rice is cooked right, drain it in a large rice sieve, pass some cold water through the rice and spring into action.

Process.Dance

Oh, it is a dance indeed. So, while you stand staring at the empty biryani pot thinking about what to do, that rice will cook itself to death. So, Do. Not. Wait. Read this blog several times before you start making a biryani so that you know what to do. And trust me, this will give you perfection. You will deliver the first time, if you internalize the instructions in this blog.

All those smooth YouTube videos where they make biryani cooking look so darn easy, have probably tried it 500 times and have contemplated suicide on at least 3 occasions. But they never tell you that. You my friend, will nail it the first time. Because you have internalized my odd-looking instructions.

Step 1:

• In the empty biryani pot, drop in a few alu-bukharas (dried prunes).
• Squeeze a couple of small lemons (or one large lemon).
• Add half of the rose petal soaked milk. (Yes, it will curdle later, but it will taste nice)
• Drizzle 90 ml of the mutton stock. (Our whisky drinker friends will know the measure)
• Sprinkle some biryani masala.
• Add in all the mutton.
• Sprinkle some masala.
• Grate copious amounts of khowa kheer to cover the mutton.
• Drizzle a table spoon of kewra water.
• Add all the potatoes.
• Sprinkle some biriyani masala.
• Grate copious amounts of khowa kheer.
• A table spoon of rose water.

Step 2:

• Delicately shovel some of the rice in until all the mutton and potatoes are covered.
• Drizzle 90 ml of mutton stock.
• Sprinkle biryani masala.
• Two tea spoons of kewra water.
• Grate copious amounts of khowa kheer.

Step 3:

• Repeat step 2 until you have one last portion of rice left.
• You should have to repeat Step 2 typically, two or three times.

Step 4:

• Layer in the last portion of rice.
• Drizzle in the remaining portion of milk.
• Pour in the Zafran water, along with the strands in a wide circle.
• Add a drop of mitha ittar. Mitha ittar is a poor man’s trick really. Ideally a teaspoon of kewra water should do.
• Seal the bad boy in, with aluminum foil.
• Place the cover of the biryani pot, tightly in place.
• Place the pot in an oven pre-heated to 430F (~232C). Set a timer for 25 minutes.
• Reduce the temperature to 250F(121C). Set a timer for 40 minutes.
• Bring out the pot. Let it rest for 15 minutes.

Step 5:

Bring out your inner Ramsey and open the lid with a flourish. Whiff in the brilliant, heady aroma. Get all your buzzed friends to do the same. Watch their faces melt when they smell it.

Step 6:

• Serve the food yourself. This is no bloody buffet. Give it respect.
• Scoop out the fluffy top rice into a large salad bowl sort of container.
• Take a plate, place a potato, place a couple of large pieces of mutton. Then serve some of the white top rice and some bottom (or tari) rice.

Alright then, champ! You did it. Reading this blog I mean. Because if you were cooking a biriyani while reading this crazily unstructured 'recipe', then god help you! Now that you are done reading this, read it again. And then one more time for your pappy's sake. And then a final time to gather all the details you need. Leave comments on how the cooking went.