Chicken Pulao Biriyani

Days seem to be flying like mad. The first quarter of the year is finished and the first week of the second quarter is also completed. Isn't that scary? Sometimes, I go home planning to do a lot of things, but then a meal, a laundry and a couple of blinks later, I realize that it is already time to put the kids off to sleep. So bye bye, goes the plans... Is it just me, or do you guys feel like that now?

Now again for a biriyani recipe today. I just love biriyani, in fact our whole family does. Every Friday, we have to make biriyani or something like pulao and chicken/ beef/ mutton, complete with a pudding or kheer/ payasam. Nothing less will suffice. Sometimes, it feels like a chore. If it does, then I just go ahead and make biriyani the pressure cooker way, which is easy and quick! Otherwise, I hunt through my thousands of print outs for some interesting biriyani recipe. This recipe sprang up during such a search. The name enthralled me - pulao and biriyani? I guess it's mainly because the sauce for the pulao and the rice is cooked separately and put on dum for the biriyani effect, rather than cooking altogether  Whatever said and done, from the update I got for this biriyani, you all should try it. Will definitely not regret, such a flavorful biriyani it was!

Chicken Pulao Biriyani
Serves 5-6


Ingredients:

1 kg chicken, cut into medium pieces
1 tbsp ginger garlic paste
Salt to taste
1 tsp red chilli pwder
1 tsp Kashmiri chilli powder
1 tbsp coriander powder
1/2 tsp cumin powder
1 tsp turmeric powder
1 tbsp garam masala powder
1 cup yogurt
3-1/2 cups rice
1 tbsp vinegar
1/2 cup milk
3 tbsp ghee
1 small onion, sliced
A pinch of saffron, soaked in 2 tbsp warm milk
1/2 tsp kewra essence

Method:

In a pressure cooker, add the chicken along with all the ingredients from ginger-garlic paste to garam masala and cook for one whistle, till done. There would be approximately one cup of stock in the chicken. Wash and soak the rice for 30 minutes. Boil the rice with vinegar and salt, and cook till half done. Drain the rice, then add the milk to it and mix well. 

Fry the onion in ghee till brown. Pour yogurt on the chicken and mix well. Spread the half boiled rice on top of the chicken. Sprinkle the saffron soaked milk, fried onion, kewra essence and the ghee that was used for frying the onion, on the top. Close the lid tight, keep on high flame for around 10 minutes, then cook on low heat for around 30 minutes, till rice gets completely cooked.

Mix well and serve hot with raitha, pickle and pappad.

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