Malay Chicken Biryani

Preparation time: 30 minutes + Marination time
Cooking Time: 40 minutes
Serves: 6

Spices to Roast & Grind:
Red Chilli: 4-6
Nigella seeds: 1 tsp
star aniseed: 2
cumin: 2 tbsp
cinnamon: 2 inch piece
black peppercorn: 1 tsp
brown cardamom: 2
cloves: 6


Dry roast all these spices and grind them coarsely in a coffee grinder,keep them aside.


Other dry Ingredients:
salt: to taste
turmeric: 1 tsp
paprika: 1 tsp or to taste
garlic powder: 1 tsp


Ingredients for marination:
ginger paste: 2 tbsp
garlic paste: 2 tbsp
Dry masala roasted and coarsely ground : 2 tbsp( save the rest for later use)
All the above dry ingredients


Other Ingredients:
Chicken: 750 g
Basmati Rice:500 g washed & soaked for 15 minutes
Tamarind: 50 g soaked for 30 minutes then press and sieve the juice/pulp
Onion Medium:  250 g or 3 onions finely sliced
curry leaves:50
Green chilli: 6-10
Olive oil: 1/2 a cup


preparation method:
marinate chicken pieces with the ingredients mentioned under marination and leave it to marinate for 1 hour.
Now take this marinated chicken and add 1/2 a cup of water cover and boil on medium heat until the chicken is tender.Then increase the heat and dry-up all the liquid.
Take a big pan and add 1/2 cup of oil and fry these chicken pieces on high heat until evenly brown stirring continuously. Remove the chicken and fried masala from the pan.
In the same oil fry the sliced onions until light golden brown.Add green chillis,curry leaves & rest of the roasted coarsely ground masala along with the tamarind pulp.Fry for a few minutes,stirring continuously. Now  add the fried chicken pieces to this add 1 cup of water and cook for a few minutes & remove from heat.


Rice:
Boil 10 cups water and cook the rice till 3/4 done.drain the rice. Take the cooked chicken curry making sure the gravy is thick and does not amount to more than 2 cups if it is more than dry it up  till it is reduced to 2 cups.
Spread this along with the rice in layers in a pan which has a tight lid. Keep it in the oven on 350 degree f for 30 minutes or till cooked.
Serve with raita & enjoy :)!!!

Note: Increase or decrease the use of green chilli's paprika and red chillis to your taste.This biryani is not mild .

I have made this biryani without curry leaves,as I was running out of these,but I strongly recommend curry leaves as these impart a very distinct flavor to the malay biryani.

This recipe was inspired by the shan malay biryani  but I wanted to avoid the color and the artificial flavors so I read the ingredients on the box and made the masala at home free of artificial colors and flavorings.