Easy Chicken Biryani | Maunika Gowardhan

Hi Food Tube, my name is Monika. I'm back with a really classic and simple Indian recipe. Today I'm going to show you how to make a really easy chicken biryani. Traditionally, biryanis take a really long time to cook and have a lengthy list of ingredients. But today I want to cook a really simplified version, one that you can actually cook and actually replicate at home. So let's get started. Chicken thighs, I think, because the ones I'm using are boneless, they are really quick to cook and also it renders its own fats. That means it keeps the moisture within the dish. I'm going to first marinate the chicken. So I need really thick, creamy yogurt. So I would suggest Greek yogurt or even if you have some natural yogurt, it's perfectly fine. So I'm using about 3 tablespoons of yogurt, a little more than a pinch of Kashmiri chilli powder. Kashmiri chilli powder is akin to paprika, so if you can't get hold of Kashmiri chilli powder, just swap it with a mild paprika. The key to this spice is that it has a really high colour intensity and a really low heat intensity. I'm also adding about half a teaspoon of turmeric powder. So a lovely, nice colour and a little bit of warmth to it. So those are your basic spices that you actually want to marinate your chicken with. So give it a good mix. Perfect. I'm going to just chop my chicken and you want nice, good sized bites. So you don't really want it to be far too thin. I prefer to use my hands, so I'm going to get stuck with my hands here. So I'll leave this to marinate for about 20 minutes or half an hour. Ideally, if you have overnight, that's great. And I will start the base of the curry while this is actually marinating. I'm using about two to three tablespoons of vegetable or sunflower oil. So about two or three pods of green cardamom and one teaspoon of cumin seeds. And you can hear them sizzle. You just need to actually fry them for a few seconds, kind of release their essential oils. So just some roughly sliced onions. White onions are great and my heat's on a medium. I'd say give this about six to eight minutes. You want them to start to change colour and soften as well. So while they're actually softening, I'm going to get on with actually slicing the tomatoes. So I've just got some regular tomatoes. I'm using about three or four of these. And also a little chilli. Any bird's eye chilli or just regular maya chilli would be perfect. So you can deseed it if you want, but I like a bit of heat in my biryani because you want the warmth of flavour and you want the spice as well. Once that's nice and brown, which it is right now, I'm going to add my sliced tomatoes. So give this about two or three minutes and it'll nicely soften and go mushy. So you want to actually with the back of your spoon start smashing the tomatoes ever so slightly. At this stage I'll also add some tomato puree. Now the key to actually having tomato puree in a dish like this is two elements really. One is that it actually thickens the sauce quite nicely and it gives it a vibrant colour as well. So I'm adding about a heaped tablespoon of tomato puree in this dish. So mix it really really well. At this stage you can see it's all nice and mushy. My tomatoes have disintegrated ever so slightly and the puree has actually mixed in really really well. And also I will be adding some ginger and garlic paste. The essence of Indian cooking and I think most homes in India can't live without it. So a good heaped tablespoon of your ginger and garlic paste. I'm also going to add some coriander powder. Now you want a good heaped teaspoon of it. So this is looking really lovely and while the heat is still on medium I'm going to add my chicken. Now the chicken has actually been marinating in the fridge for about 20 minutes till I've been making the base for the gravy. You've got a little bit of yogurt in here. So one of the reasons and the key to actually adding Greek or full fat yogurt is to make sure that the yogurt doesn't split while it actually hits the pan. Add a good amount of salt to season. And stir it really really well. Now the chicken is nice and thick so at this stage you let it simmer and just to make sure it's actually cooked all the way through. I'd add a tiny touch of water, not a lot, maybe about 15 ml of water. Just to kind of create a light sauce, you don't want it to be quite a rich sauce. So seal the pieces really well for about 2 or 3 minutes. And then you just stick the lid on and cook on a really low heat for about 5 minutes, no more than that. Because the rest of the cooking will happen when you actually layer the rice on top of it. Okay so while my chicken is actually simmering away for 5 minutes, I'm going to get the rest of my ingredients together. The key to a classic chicken biryani is all the other elements that actually go into the dish. So first things first, I'm going to actually get the saffron milk on. So I've just got a few strands of saffron because I think it's a lovely lovely flavour that actually goes through the rice. And to this I'm going to add 2 to 3 tablespoons of warm milk. What the milk does is it actually loosens the strands of saffron and the more it soaks in, the yellower it gets. And it lends a lovely flavour to the rice and also a lovely colour to the rice. So at this stage I'm going to chop some coriander, fresh coriander and fresh mint. So a nice good generous handful which goes over the rice. I would actually recommend using rice that's basmati. And one that actually is already cooked means that you actually save on time as well when you're cooking the biryani. So that's done. And now we'll actually check on the chicken again. It's already smelling amazing. So you want to make sure the chicken is evenly layered in the pan to make sure that the rice actually goes over it. It's really crucial to use a nice long grain rice. Basmati is perfect for a dish like this because you want those separated grains. You can see I'm spreading it really evenly with my tablespoon. At this stage what you want to do is turn the heat completely off. Okay so I've layered the rice and to this I'll add a few ingredients. So a little bit of the saffron milk. You can see that it's lending a really lovely colour. So about half the amount of saffron milk is what you want at this stage. Half a teaspoon of garam masala powder. And then what you want is some of the coriander and some of the mint. So you can see the yellow grains of rice, the white grains of rice, a little bit of garam masala. But now at this stage with the heat off again I'm adding the second layer of rice. So I'm using about 300 grams of rice and you want to make sure it's evenly spread through. This is a really good recipe to begin with as a starter for somebody who's never cooked a biryani before. So once I've added the second layer of rice I'm going to do exactly the same thing. I'll add the rest of my saffron. I'll also add some of the garam masala again. And then I'll add the rest of my mint and my coriander. Now at this stage what I'm going to do is stick the lid back on and cook this on a really really low heat for about 5 minutes. And once that's done rest it for about 10 minutes and we're good to go. You can see that all the grains are still separated and what the layering process and the steaming does it just infuses the flavours that much more. So I'm going to just ladle it out into my serving dish. Now along with this a biryani is really never complete unless you have some really delicious accompaniments. So I've got my boondi raita which is actually my favourite. And boondi is basically just the fried gram flour which you actually have with the chickpea flour. It's little crisp morsels which you actually add to the yoghurt. I've got my chutneys as well so I've got an apricot and fennel chutney, some pickle and also some onion salad. So you don't really have to do all of it but I think some of it would be really lovely to actually serve along with your biryani. At the end of the day it's a really lovely family feast so you want to make sure there's a good spread for everybody to actually tuck into. And you can see that the colours are all different. There's a bit of white grains of rice, shards of the saffron, the fresh mint, coriander and of course the chicken which is really lovely. And a spoonful of my salan. So a little gravy and again you don't have to but my salan essentially is just an onion based salan with some tamarind, some chilli. So there you have it, my easy chicken biryani. It looks utterly wonderful and really delicious. All the flavours come through, the cardamom, the chilli, the hint of spice as well. And also the balance of the layers, all the spice that we've added, the saffron, the garam masala and it's definitely worth a try. So for lots more Indian recipes make sure to check out my website in the description box below. And also for some exciting Indian recipes coming up on FoodTube make sure to subscribe to the channel as well. If you'd like to see another recipe using saffron make sure to check out my mango lassi on Drinkstube.