Easy Chicken Biriyani

This is a very easy method for cooking chicken biriyani. It can be cooked in a very short time and does not need any curry with it except a yogurt salad.

Ingredients:

1. 1 kg Chicken cut into pieces
2. 3 cups basmati rice
3. 5 green chillies
4. 1 inch Ginger
5. 2 medium onions
6. 2 tomatoes
7. 5 cloves of garlic
8. 1/2 bunch of coriander leaves
9. Few mint leaves
10. 2 tablespoons coriander powder
11. 1 tablespoon chilli powder
12. 1 tsp cumin powder
13. 1 tsp turmeric powder
14. 1 tblsp garam masala or chicken masala (mainly a combination of powdered cinnamon, cardamoms, cloves, curry leaves, fennel seeds)http://www.pachakam.com/glossary.asp
15. 2 tbsp ghee (clarified butter)
16. 5 cups of hot water
17. 1 tbsp lime juice
18. Salt as per taste

Method:

• Grind all the items from 3 to 14 in a grinder into a paste
• Take a pressure cooker and heat the ghee in it. If you do not have ghee add 100 gms butter and let it melt.
• Add the ground paste and fry it until the ghee starts bubbling through the masala. Now put the chicken and a little salt in it and mix with the paste. Close the lid and let it pressure cook for 8 minutes.
• Open the cooker only after the pressure is gone from inside the cooker.
• Add the washed rice, lime juice, salt and hotwater to the cooked chicken and mix.
• Close the lid again and let it cook for another 6 minutes or until the cooker is about to give out a whistle.
• Off the stove and let the food remain in the pressure cooker until all the pressure is gone from inside the cooker. If you are using a electric stove top, move the cooker to a cooler stove top.
• You can garnish the biriyani with fried onion rings or fried nuts.

Note: Never open a pressure cooker when there is pressure inside, it can lead to a terrible accident.