Indian Spices Part 2

This will be the continuation of the food recipe for Hydrabadi Chicken Biryani. Although I do have a blog about Indian spices so I interconnected this one too so that some of you may be familiarize with other spices that we use here in India to make a great dish.


Indian Spices for Chicken Biryani Recipe


Since I owe my readers about the ingredients that hubby included when he cooked Hydrabadi Chicken Biryani, here is now the list:

Ingredients:

Cumin powder- 1 tbsp.
Coriander powder- 2 tbsp.
Turmeric powder- ½ tbsp.
Red chili powder- 1 tbsp.
Jeera or cumin (white)- 1 teaspoon
Cloves- 3 to 4 pieces
Bay leaves- 2 pieces
Black cardamom- 2 pieces
Green cardamom- 2 to 3 pieces
Javetri or maze- 2 pieces
Cinnamon stick- 2 sticks
Black peppercorns- 5-6 pieces
Fried onions- 3 to 4 medium size
Ginger-garlic paste- 1 tbsp.
Fresh green chilies – 2 pieces
Mint leaves
Coriander leaves
Lemon – 1 big size
Plain yogurt 500ml
Chicken ½ kilo
Salt to taste


Method for Cooking/ Preparing Hydrabadi Chicken Biryani:

Step 1: Clean the chicken well before marinating. Mix all the ingredients above except for lemon. Keep it marinated for 1 hour or more.

Step 2: Soak the basmati rice for 30 minutes. After this, you can now cook the rice by boiling water with salt and oil. Once the water boils, put the soaked basmati rice and cook it only 50% done (half cook).

Step 3: Once your marinated chicken is done for marinating, put it is a deep pan and cook it till the chicken meat is tender, do not over cook. Once the water in the chicken is gone, that is that time you can now put on top the half cooked basmati rice and cook it till the rice is properly cooked. Layer it with another fried onions, coriander leaves, mint leaves and sliced lemons. Put the cover and make sure it is tightly sealed to blend the flavors in the chicken and basmati rice.

Step 4: Serve while hot, best to combine with raita.

If you want to read the previous post I have for Indian spices click here: Spices of India
Here is the link for the post for part one of Hydrabadi Chicken Biryani: Yummy Hydrabadi Chicken Biryani


Hope you do like the recipes, just write me here or leave a comment if you do have any queries. Thank you and hope to keep you posted for more exciting recipes and foods.

Hydrabadi Chicken Biryani

When hubby takes his off, I am sure that I can relax a bit in the kitchen for I know that he will be eager to prepare something. I was not wrong, he did prepare chicken biryani but not the same biryani he prepared in the past post that I have which you can compare if you would check my blog about it..Chicken Biryani

Delicious Hydrabadi Chicken Biryani



I must say practice really makes perfect, and this time his biryani is really tasty and delicious, the basmati rice was perfect and not over cooked or sticky. The chicken that was marinated with spices really seeps deep and I can say that this is truly Hydrabadi Chicken Biryani especial and one of the best recipes my hubby cooked.

The preparation was not the same as the first one since all the spices he gathered first before mixing them with chicken while the basmati rice was soaked for 30 minutes before cooking it in water which is to be half done.

Second layer of basmati rice, topped with mint leaves, lemon and coriander leaves


I will be posting here the spices needed for marinating your chicken so just stay tuned for the link that I will share on my other post. Now going back to chicken biryani story, you can use different chicken parts here with bones. You also need to buy plain yogurt because you will mix it together with other spices for marinating your chicken.

You would also need a deeper pan where you can place your chicken and top the half-cooked basmati rice on top of it. Be sure that the lid is tightly sealed or else you can use a cheese cloth and cover the lid so that the steam would really infuse the rice and chicken together.

You can marinate your chicken for an hour but if you’re not in a hurry to cook, the longer your chicken is marinated the better. But don’t over soak your basmati rice. It should only be done for 30 minutes and cook it in water which you can put a bit of oil and salt and it has to be 50% done, not fully cooked rice since you need to top this half cooked rice into your chicken.

Basmati rice has longer grains and a very aromatic smell


Once you’re done marinating your chicken, you need to put it in a pan and let the water from the chicken juice out while it is in medium heat. When you can smell the aroma of your chicken, just check the water but don’t let the chicken ran out dry at the bottom of the pan because this means your chicken is already done and you should have already added the half cooked basmati rice on top.

Biryani should be in layer so meaning the second topping of rice will have to include some ingredients like mint leaves, coriander leaves, lemon slices and fried onions then layer it again with rice. See to it that the flame is in slow heat so that you won’t over cook the chicken and the rice. Tightly sealed lids will make sure that your cooking your rice better and the moisture of it will make the rice softer but not sticky.

I really enjoyed the whole day of eating Hydrabadi Chicken Biryani. We just did not include any food colorings into it. But if you want some color, you can try to include saffron into it. Hope you did enjoy this wonderful dish which is truly authentic Indian cuisine.

The Flavors of India

I have here a sample photo of the spices that I mention a lot whenever I share recipes and post it here on my blog. I just wanted you to get familiar with some of the spices although this is not yet done since there are more than a hundred spices that I can add and I only showcased about less than ten.

Spices of Indian cooking



Anyway these are the top ingredients that you won’t miss whenever you cook an Indian dish or cuisine. I was supposed to label one ingredient to be Garam masala instead of just placing it Masala powder. Garam means hot in Hindi and most of the time we used whole garam masala which consist of cinnamon bark or stick, cloves, whole black pepper, bay leaf and cardamom seeds.
Turmeric is luyang dilaw in tagalog although you don’t use it as a whole but in a dried and powdered form. Ginger-garlic paste is derived obviously from fresh ginger and garlic which is just mixed and turned into paste.

About cloves, it has a very nice smell and strong taste of course. If you have toothache, you can use cloves as a home remedy for your aching tooth. It is also an ingredient here for tooth paste and it is good to fight off bacteria.

Red chili powder is derived from dried red chilies which are powderized. Another ingredient that I have mentioned here was jeera seeds or cumin. I have never seen this one in my country and never did we use it in any dish. The very first time I have seen this ingredient is when I arrived here in India and hubby used it a lot in his cooking.

Coriander powder comes from nothing more than coriander seeds itself but was just dried and powdered. I think I don’t need to further discuss cinnamon stick and black pepper since it is always available in the market unlike the rest of the spices that I have mentioned. Next time I will be posting the other spices used in India for making their dish so special.