Recipe: Hyderabadi Biryani

Learn to prepare the original biryani, cooked in the kitchens of the Nizams of Hyderabad. Ingredients: • ½ kg Basmati Rice (semi-cooked) • 1 kg Boneless Meat (washed and chopped into square pieces) • 500 gm Curd • 4-6 tsp Ginger-Garlic Paste • 4-6 Green Chilli • 2 Big Onions (sliced) • ¼ cup Lime Juice • ½ tsp Red Chilli Powder • A pinch of Caraway Seeds (Shahi Zeera) • 5-6 twigs Coriander Leaves (chopped) • 5-6 twigs Mint Leaves (chopped) • 2 pinch Saffron • 1-2 Cinnamon • 2-3 pods Cardamom • 2-3 drops Saffron Color • 1-2 pods Clove • 2 cup Oil • Salt to taste • 2 tsp Ghee Procedure: • Smear the pieces of meat with ginger-garlic paste. • Keep them to marinate for an hour. • In the meanwhile, fry the sliced onions in a heated pan on low flame till light brown. • Let the onions cool down and crush them. • Now add crushed fried onion (only three-fourth), curd, red chilli powder, cinnamon, green chilli paste, cardamom, shahi zeera, coriander leaves, clove, saffron water, mint leaves and salt to the marinated meat. • Leave the meat as it is for 1 hour. • Make the mixture of aromatic water by adding salt (one tsp), cinnamon, clove, cardamom, mint leaves and coriander leaves in a little water. • Now spread a layer of semi-cooked rice in a heavy bottomed vessel. • Add saffron color, limejuice, ghee and the remaining crushed onions over the layer of rice. • Spread a layer of marinated meat over this, and again spread the remaining semi-cooked rice. • Now add the aromatic water in a circular motion over the rice layer. • Now tightly cover the vessel with a lid. Keep it on a low flame. • Remove the vessel from the flame exactly after 15 minutes. • Hyderabadi Biryani is ready to eat. Serve hot