Yakhni Pulao

1/2kg chicken (1kg)
2 tomatoes (4)
2 onions (4)
2 laung (4)
3 green cardamom (6)
1 black cardamom (1.5)
5 crushed kali mirich (8)
1 inch piece of darchini (2'')
6 cloves sliced garlic (10)
1/2 inch piece of ginger, sliced (1'')
2 tbsp kaccha tel (3 tbsp)
3 slit green chillies (5)
1/2 tsp salt (1)
1/2 tsp zeera (1)
1 tsp saunf (1.5)

2 onions, fried till before golden, strained
2 tbsp oil
1/2 tsp ginger
1/2 tsp garlic
1/2 cup dahi
1/2 tsp red chilli powder, or according to taste
1/2 garam masala powder

1/2 kg long grained rice


Boil the chicken in enough water to cover it and add all the bold ingredients in it. Cook for 20 minutes after water starts boiling. This will prepare the yakhni for the pulao.

Meanwhile, wash and soak rice in plenty of water and keep aside.
In a separate utensil, heat oil, and on hot flame add the chicken pieces from the yakhni and add ginger, garlic, chilli powder and garam masala and stir till the spices leave off aroma. Turn the heat to lowest and add the dahi and stir. After a minute or two, add the strained yakhni liquid and bring to boil. Add the rice and bring to boil and check how much more water the rice needs. The rice should be soaked in water from the yakhni. Cover with kitchen cloth and a steel lid and turn to heat to low and cook for 20 minutes.
Uncover and leave be for 10 minutes, then carefully insert a flat serving ladle and transfer on to a dish/plate.

Serve with Raita and kachumar, and/or chutney.

Hyderabadi Kacche Gosht ki Biryani

Marinade: 2 kg chicken
1/2 cup oil
3 tbsp kaccha papita
2 cups thick yoghurt/hung curd
3 cups friend onion
1/2 cup lemon juice
2 tbsp ginger-garlic paste
2 tsp salt
1 tsp turmeric
1 1/2 tsp red chilli powder
1 tbsp dhanya powder
1 tbsp garam masala
2 bayleafs
3 inch cinnamon stick, broken in 3
4 green cardamoms, ground
6 laung, ground
5 green chillies, chopped
caps of kewra water
For the rice:
1 kg basmati rice
1 cup fried onions
1 tbsp ginger juliennes
2 tbsp ghee
a gram saffron,
2 drizzles of kewra water
5 green chillies
1 bunch fresh coriander, finely chopped
Kitchen cloth, wet but not dripping

(in 3 liters of water)
whole roasted garam masala in a ball strainer
 3 tsp salt
1/2 tsp saunf
2 tsp zeera
1/2 tsp grated jaiphal
1/2 tsp ground javitri

Method:
Step one. Marination (6-8 hours or overnight)
 Coat the chicken pieces evenly in raw papaya, lemon juice and salt. Add the rest of the ingredients and mix really well. Cover and leave in the fridge for the desired duration.


Wash and soak the rice in ample water half an hour before use.
In a large utensil put the water to boil. Add the salt, zeera-saunf, whole garam masala, javitri and jaiphal, bring to a boil. Add the rice. Once the rice starts boiling again, turn the flame to medium and let cook for 2 minutes and drain the rice.

Put the marinated chicken in a big utensil, add the chicken and cover with the rice. Sprinkle with the the ginger and the fried onions and fresh coriander, saffron, drizzle the kewra. Cover with the wet kitchen towel and put on the stove on medium flame. after 5 minutes turn the heat to low and cook for an hour. Serve with raita and salad.

Chicken Dum Biryani

Ingredients

• 500 gm rice (long grain, basmati rice)500 gm chicken, in evenly sized pieces
  
  Marinade:
  
  2 tsp ground white pepper
  
  Juice of 1/2 lemon (skip if marinating for anything over 4 hours)
• 1/2 Tbsp desi ghee
  
  2 tsp garlic paste
  
  1.5 tsp ginger paste
  
  1 cup onion, chopped
  
  2 tsp chilli powder
  1 tsp fennel or saunf powder
  
  1.5 heaped tsp salt
  
  2 cups water (if needed)
  
  1 cup yogurt
• 
  
• Masala ( roast in a bit of oil and grind to a fine paste)
  5 cloves
• 4 cardamoms
  
  2 bay leaf
  
  2 by one inch piece of cinnamon
• 3medium sized onions, chopped and fried till golden
  
  
  
  
  Finishing Spices:
  
  1/2 tsp green cardamom powder
  
  1/2 tsp fennel powder
  
  1/2 cup cream (optional, won't make a difference)
  3 tsp kewra water
• half a javitri, grated

For Rice:

 

(in a utensil)
1 gram saffron
1 medium sized onion, chopped, fried and strained
an inch cube of Ginger, grated 
3 green chillies, sliced, 
150 grams of the cooked rice

 a small piece of jaiphal


(in 3 liters of water)
whole roasted garam masala in a ball strainer
(optional) salt, a tsp

• 
  

Method

wash the rice and soak it in water.

Cut the chicken into even sized pieces.

In a bowl add all the marinade ingredients and coat the chicken pieces well with it. Let it marinate for a few hours, overnight is alright.

Put 2.5 liters of water with the ball strainer on boil. The utensil should be big enough to accommodate 500 grams of cooked rice, along with excess water. Make sure the water and the rice doesn't boil over.

In the meanwhile heat ghee/oil in a pan and add all the spices for the masala, take the garam masala out When the spices are roasted and leave of their fragrance, add the onions and fry till still retain a bit of their original color, they'll cook in their own heat and become golden. Take it out and divide in two. Grind one part with the other masala and jaiphal. Youll need the other part to add to the cooked chicken. Set aside.


In the oil you fried onions in, in a pan with large surface area, on high heat, carefully pick and drop the chicken pieces, starting with the biggest ones,wait for the chicken to change color and turn the pieces over if you like and add a cup of yogurt. Keep 3 cooked, dried, pureed tomatoes at hand. If you feel the chicken is cooking fast, add them to the pan/if you like gravy add them any way but cook them separately.
Once the water boils, add the rice to it. Cook for about 7 minutes or till the rice is nearly done.  Strain and work quickly so the rice doesn't cool down.

Cook till chicken is nearly done and doesn't have much water left (till the chicken is partially cooked)once off the stove, add the finishing spices and the ground masala and fried onion.
Add the cream to it. Add 2 caps of kewra

This is the infusion in which the rice will be cooked. Keep this aside.




Check the seasoning before adding rice after which you would not be able to adjust it.

Add the rice to the grated ginger and sliced green chillies, et al., in the utensil.
In the layering utensil add rice in a third, slightly overlapping with the chicken mix, add the green chilli and fried onion rice in one part, taking care that the onion rice doesnt overlap much with the chiken mix


Let it cook on low heat (on dum, in it's own heat) covered with a wet kitchen towel for about half an hour or 60 minutes. (till the chicken and rice are fully cooked)

Mutton

1 kg mutton
5 big onions, fried, divided into 2
(2 black elaichi, 4 chhoti, 6 long, 15 Kali mirich, 1.5 by 2 inch darchini, 3 tezpath, 6-8 hot green chillies) fried until aromatic and ground with one part onions
1 tbsp Adrak lesan paste
2 flat tsp red chilli powder
2 heaped tsp salt
(Optional)A 1.5 by 1 inch cube of raw papaya, ground to a paste or just cut into smaller cubes
4 tomatoes peeled and ground
1 cup yoghurt, whisked well

The rice
One kg good quality rice
2 black elaichi, 4 chhoti, 6 long, 15 Kali mirich, 1.5 by 2 inch darchini, 3 tezpath in a Ball strainer
1 tsp zeera, 1 tsp saunf
(Optional) Salt, 1 tsp
a gram saffron,
2 caps of kewra water, plus more
2 big onions, chopped, fried and strained
6 slit hot green chillies

(Optional) Asli ghee, 4 tbsp if you haven't used much oil in the cooking and have strained the fried onions before use, 2 otherwise

(Optional) Milk, half a cup or more, depending on the stage you strained the rice and how uncooked it is
(Optional) Ghee/butter sticks, 1 or 2

Kitchen cloth, wet but not dripping

Method:
On high heat: In a pressure cooker heat oil and add the meat pieces in descending order of size. If the meat sticks, don't try to scrape the bottom. First either turn the flame down or/and put a lid on it, after about two minutes attempt stirring it. Add the 1 tbsp adrak lesan, red chilli powder, salt. Add the  Stir. After a while add the tomato and dahi. As long as the dahi is whisked well it doesn't matter if you add it while the meat is still on high flame.
Stir and seal the pressurecooker lid.
Put a large utensil on boil with 4.5 liters of water. Put the ball strainer masala and the saunf zeera, salt in the water. Bring to a boil. Alternatively, you can put two smaller utensils and divide the water.
After 1 whistle put it on low heat for about 10 minutes. This should be enough for tender meat. If you haven't added the papaya, 2 whistles and 20 minutes is enough for other meats. Turn off the stove and don't pull the whistle.
Soak the rice in 2 liters of water. There should be enough water for the rice to puff up and still have water around it.

Either wait for the cooker to cool down enough that fresh steam doesn't come out when you pull the whistle or put the cooker under cold running water till it cools down.
If you're in hot climes, beware of the steam around the handle when you open the lid at first.
In a utensil that can hold 300 grams of cooked rice, add a gram of saffron, the fried chopped onion and asli ghee.

Check the tenderness of the meat, if its done then cook and stir on high flame till there's not much gravy left. Add the ground onion, garam masala and green chilli paste to this. Add the other part onion, 2 caps kewra. Set aside.

Add the rice to the boiling water. Cook for roughly 7 minutes or till the rice is cooked al dente. Strain all of it. 
You can leave some rice at the bottom of the biggest utensil and make that your first layer. Put it on the lowest flame on a medium burner if the utensil is big.
It will cook more in its own steam till you sort things for layering, so if it is still noticably uncooked, there is no need to worry. Put roughly 300 grams of the rice in the saffron utensil and stir with a slotted turner or spatula, taking care that the rice doesnt break and the saffron and the fried onions are evenly distributed.
Add the set aside meat gravy to the rice layer, add proportional saffron rice and then plain rice again. Make sure some of the saffron rice in each layer is not in contact with the meat gravy so the fried onion in it can retain its flavor.
Repeat till there is an inch of space left in the utensil and then use another. Pour 2 caps of kewra water evenly over the rice. 
Add boiling milk evenly. Stick in ghee sticks at even distances or evenly put a tbsp or two of asli ghee.
 Cover the utensils with a kitchen cloth each and cover a flat steel lid.
 Keep it on the lowest flame for an hour or half. 
If you feel youve added too much milk or the rice was done before you put it on dum, move the steel lid a little to allow some steam to escape or don't wet the kitchen towel at all. 
Open the lid and beware of the steam when you remove the kitchen cloth, check if the rice is done. 

Serve with raita or salad.