Restaurant Style Hyderabadi Chicken Biryani | Easy Chicken Biryani Recipe

Biryani is one of the most adored recipe in our family. It all started from the time I was a kid, every Sunday lunch menu would be a special biryani from Amma mostly Chicken Biryani and occasionally Lamb biryani. Long back I posted a super simple Chicken Biryani Amma Style but over the years R & me have explored so much when it comes to Biryani and one version that usually makes us crave for would be the Hyderabadi Mutton biryani and today I wanted to do a twist to this recipe make it using Chicken and a restaurant style Chicken Hyderabadi Biryani. Usually when you order for any biryani in a restaurant you will 90% not find whole spices likes bay leaf, cinnamon stick, star anise and so on in the biryani and the only visible ingredients would be rice, meat, onions, tomatoes and at times mint leaves. I was intrigued by how they can come out with such fantastic taste despite not adding the whole spices. When I did my research to find a restaurant style chicken biryani I bumped on this recipe by Vah chef and the next weekend I made this for our Sunday lunch. It was a perfect restaurant style biryani :-) you have to try it to know how great it tastes.

RESTAURANT STYLE HYDERABADI BIRYANI RECIPE 

Serves ~ 3-4 generously

Cook time ~ 40 mins

Prep time ~ for marination overnight or minimum 4 hours 

Serving suggestion ~ Onion Raita or Mirchi ka Salan

Ingredients

(read notes below before doing the recipe)

Fried Onions - from 2 large onions, thinly sliced, fried until golden

Oil - to deep fry/ shallow fry onions as required

Mint leaves - handful (10-15 leaves)

Saffron colour - 2 drops diluted in 2 tbsp of milk ( adds colour)

Kewar extract - 5 drops (Adds flavour) 

For Rice

Basmathi rice - 2 cups 

Water - 6 cups

Onion seeds - 2 tsp

Garam Masala Powder - 2 tsp

Ghee/ oil - 2 tsp

Salt - as required (its a must)

For Marination (overnight/ minimum 4 hours)

Chicken - 1 kg 

Yogurt/ Curd - 1/2 cup

Red chilli powder - 2 tsp

Corriander powder - 1 tbsp

Cumin/ Jeera powder - 1 tsp

Garam masala - 1 tsp

Mint leaves - handful (10-15 leaves)

Ginger garlic paste - 1 tbsp

Salt - to taste 

Lemon juice - 2 tbsp

Oil - 3 tbsp

Turmeric - 1/4 tsp

Method

For Rice -

• Wash Basmathi rice in cold running water for 2-3 times and soak with more water for an hour
• In a wide tall vessel add 6 cups water , add salt, oil/ghee, onion seeds, garam masala and bring to a boil. This takes 8 minutes.
• Now drain excess water from the soaked rice and add to the boiling water. Let the flame be on medium-low flame. Keep watch on the rice after first 10 minutes. 
• Cooked rice needs to be taken at 2 stages - one when it is 50% cooked and second batch when it is 70% cooked. Switch off and continue with biryani base

For Biryani 

• Remove the chicken marination from the refrigerator 30 mins before cooking so that it comes to room temperature.
• Heat a thick and wide bottom vessel and when it is hot add the marinated chicken and close the lid for 10 minutes, after which line the 50% cooked rice and top it with fried onions and mint leaves. 
• Next layer the 70% cooked rice and layer on top with fried onions and mint leaves. Now add the saffron mixture (milk+kewar extract+saffron yellow food colour) and pour on the rice.
• Cover with a tight lid or cover with a cotton kitchen towel and close the lid such that the lid is nice and tight and the air/ pressure does not escape
• Place a dosa tawa / skillet on the stove and place the biryani vessel on it and after 3 minutes bring down the flame to simmer (medium-low) and let the biryani cook undisturbed for 35-40 minutes
• Once done switch off and let it rest undisturbed for another 15 minutes (do not open the lid), this stage is called dum where the pressure within the vessel develops flavours
• Just before serving mix the rice to the chicken at the bottom of the vessel and serve hot along with raita or mirchi ka salan

Cooks Wisdom 

Incase our lid is not tight enough make a dough with wheat flour and water and place on the rim of the pan and cover with the lid (optional)

You can use any meat of your choice chicken, lamb, goat

Use good quality basmati rice and ghee

It is very very important to add salt when rice is boiling, if you miss it then your briyani would not result good.

Keeping the pan on the dosa tawa avoids the meat from getting burnt at the bottom, so make sure this is done 

You can also use saffron diluted in milk to colour the biryani 

Check out my other Biryani Recipe below

- Hyderabadi Mutton Biryani

- Chicken Dum Biryani 

- Amma's Chicken Biryani