Chicken biryani

Ingredients

Quantities for 6 servings.

• 500 g Basmati rice, soaked 30 minutes
• 1 kg Chicken on the bone
• 250 g Thick yoghurt
• 3 piece Onions, thinly sliced
• 30 g Ginger
• 6 clove Garlic
• 2 tsp Garam masala
• 1 tsp Chilli powder
• 0.5 tsp Turmeric
• 1 tbsp Cardamom, cloves, cinnamon, bay
• 1 pinch Saffron
• 60 ml Warm milk
• 1 sprig Mint and coriander
• 60 g Ghee or butter
• to taste Salt

Method

1. Fry the onions in ghee to a deep gold — twenty minutes over medium heat. Set half aside: that is the birista, and the main flavour of the dish.
2. Marinate the chicken in the yoghurt with the ginger, garlic, spices, half the fried onion, mint and salt. Give it an hour, better three.
3. Boil the rice in plenty of salted water with the whole spices for exactly five minutes and drain. A grain should snap but stay white in the middle.
4. Spread the marinated chicken over the bottom of a heavy pot and the rice over it in an even layer. Pour the saffron milk over in patches and scatter the rest of the onion and the herbs.
5. Cover as tightly as you can, sealing the rim with foil if you like. Five minutes on a high flame, then forty on the lowest. Do not lift the lid once.
6. Let it stand for ten minutes, then fold once from the bottom up, lifting the chicken into the rice rather than stirring everything to a mush.