Welcome to my gastronomical adventures!!!: Second successful attempt at the Chicken Dum Biryani & many more to come

Was waiting for Shravan (auspicious month) to get over and as promised, was extremely excited to recreate the magic – Chicken Dum Biryani..

I had plenty of time to get all ingredients, marinate the chicken for a full 12 hours and cook the biryani on dum for a neat 45 minutes.

All along, I was hoping it to have the same flavors and juiciness, which I had made 10 months back.. and happy to say – I am extremely thrilled on my second attempt.

One more important thing is that the entire biryani is made in about 8 tbpsns of oil.. that’s it. The best part is that even with so less oil, the biryani is very moist, chicken is well-cooked (in fact, tastes as if it is roasted) and the rice does not stick to the vessel.

Let’s take a look at the process..

The marinade with all spices, masala,
herbs & curd

The marinade was kept for full 12 hours (overnight). The chicken absorbs all the flavour from all elements to make it very juicy.

The ingredients which make the rice
flavorful - whole spices

All these elements go in the boiling water for about 2 minutes, before the basmati.

The rice has to be half-cooked in the boiling water (alongwith the ingredients) for about 5 to 10 minutes.
One tbspn oil should be added in the boiling water, so that the rice does not stick and all the grains are separate.

It's important that all the grains are separate
and the rice gives out the aroma of whole spices

Immediately, drain the rice alongwith all spices.

It's important that the rice grains are sepearted and not broken.

Do not stir while the rice is getting boiled.

The rice is ready to be cooked alongwith the chicken now.

the dum itself

There are only 2 layers - the entire marinade goes in the vessel (without any more oil) and is the bottom layer.

The half-cooked rice should be put above that and thats forms the second & last layer. Put some saffron milk on top to give it a little colour.

You can further garnish the rice with fried onions, cashews and coriander.. I did not put any.. since, mine is a low-cal version.

The lid was covered with atta, to retain all the flavors inside and the biryani gets cooked in it's own dum.

This has to be cooked directly on high flame for about 5 to 6 minutes with lid on and then slow roasted on a tava (see picture) for 30 - 35 minutes on low flame.