Chicken Biryani

I was not the one who prepared this dish, it was hubby. I personally like biryani but it was really difficult to cook (according to me) because it takes a lot of effort especially calculating the rice. If the chicken was perfect in the way you cook it but if your rice does not cooperate, well that will not be a good biryani.


Hubby just used chicken tandoori for this biryani



Chicken biryani needs basmati rice in order to make a very authentic Indian Biryani. I don’t have any issues if you can cook chicken biryani using ordinary rice, but the thing is, biryani rice will never be sticky but porous or loose. In making this dish, your rice should be soaked in water for about half an hour to keep the grains softer before placing it on top of your cooked chicken pieces.

Spices are grand when it comes to biryani and you can only get most of its ingredients from an Indian food store. I don’t know if there is a ready mixed powder for biryani to make the cooking much more easier, but I guess most Indians here will never agree to the idea of short cutting a procedure for making biryani.

There are different types of biryani to cook like meat biryanis (non-vegetable) and the vegetable biryanis. But no matter how every state prepares it, the taste would simply be hot and really spicy. But what happened to hubby’s rendition of chicken biryani, well it turned out so hot and the rice got sticky even if it was basmati rice, meaning it has too much water during the process of cooking.

Hubby also prepared Raita for this Chicken Biryani Combination



This was really one dish that you need to practice cooking in order to get the right consistency of the rice since you will put the soaked rice on top of your cooked chicken till it get cooked.
Biryani can’t be complete without raita. This is like a combination of your egg and bacon meal. Chicken biryani is always paired to be eaten with raita and mango pickles.

Raita is a combination of yogurt, cucumber, salt, fresh coriander leaves, tomato or carrot if you like. It is a cooler for your tongue whenever you eat that hot biryani. I’d be posting the recipe sooner once we get back home from our short vacation, but for now, all I can do is to share with you the pictures.

Chicken Pulao

It’s not a perfect chicken pulao for me, but at least I tried my best for this dish even if the ingredients are not complete. First of all it was so fussy to cook which really consumes time and if you are in a hurry to prepare dinner or a meal, well I would suggest that you need to skip this dish and save it for those times when you’re the queen of the kitchen and has ample time.

Why? Well first of all, the recipe would need time to marinate the chicken. Next you need a grinder for the toasted spices and then next are cooking the chicken and soaking the rice. I really sweat a lot on waiting for the chicken to be done as well as the rice. If you miscalculated the amount of water, this means you’re rice will also be in danger, I mean it will be hard on the inside and sticky on the outside. Well anyway here is the sample instruction if you are interested to try Chicken Pulao.


Chicken Pulao not yet garnished with coriander


Marinating the chicken:

Cut the chicken into cubes or medium pieces. Put yogurt, salt and red chili powder and marinate it for hours.

Grinding the spices:

2 tbsp. of poppy seeds
4 pcs. Cloves
Cinnamon bark (small cut portion)
4 Cardamom seeds
4-5 tbsp. of Grated coconut

Instruction: Toast the following spices except the grated coconut. Put it in a grinder and make a paste out of it by combining the toasted spices with coconut and 2 tbsp. of water. Set it aside.

Rice: You can use Basmati rice for the best possible option for Chicken Pulao. But what I have was just ordinary rice so anyway I soaked it in water for 30 minutes.

Cooking Chicken Pulao:

Step 1: Heat the pan and put oil. Next you need to put jeera seeds, hing, whole garam masala and onions. Put salt in your onions to cook it easily then next is to put turmeric and then ginger-garlic paste.

Step 2: When your onion is done, you can now put the spices paste that you grinded then next is put 2 tbsp. of coriander powder and 5- 6 pcs. curry leaves.

Step 3: Stir the mixture and now put all the marinated chicken and add one cup of water as you cook the chicken for 15 minutes.

Step 4: Once you can see oil on the side of your pan, you can now put the soaked rice on top of your chicken and keep the flame in slow and cook it for 5 minutes. After this you need to add more water to your rice to keep it moist and now you can stir the rice all together with the chicken. Taste it if it needs more salt to taste.

Step 5: Cook your rice for another 20 minutes, but be sure to check your water and rice if it is really cook. I suggest you use a thick bottomed pan or cooker which is also a non-stick pan so the rice won’t stick at the bottom. Also keep in mind to put the flame on a slow so that the rice and chicken will be cook very well. Garnish it with fresh coriander leaves and serve it hot.