Chicken Biryani Recipe (Special tips included)

Chicken Dum Biryani Recipe

Restaurant style!

Biryani is a slow cooked flavorful rice dish which is made by mixing it with curried meat or vegetables and owes its roots to the Indian Subcontinent. I've made Biryanis several times before, but on this occasion, my parents just couldn't stop praising it, so I thought I had to share it with you!

This particular recipe is called a Dum Biryani because the rice and meat are slow cooked under pressure so that the aromas and flavors are trapped in their own steam. It employs a longer procedure than the regular biryani, but after doing ample research, I came up with ways to make the recipe slightly simpler and more practical. How, you ask? Read on...

First up, powder a mixture of whole spices and add ginger  & garlic paste, chilli powder, coriander powder, cumin powder, shahi jeera, salt, ghee, juice of half a lime, chopped coriander, chopped mint leaves and half a cup yogurt to the mixture. Mix well to form a paste and marinate chicken pieces overnight or at least for 3-4 hours. Tip - Overnight marination works best! Also, pierce the chicken and use fresh chicken instead of frozen.

Next, slice up 2 medium sized onions, roughly sprinkle some corn flour over the onions and deep fry immediately. This will give you perfectly browned onions. Tip - Take the onions off the heat before it becomes too brown as the colour darkens a bit even after it is taken out of the hot oil. 

Roast a few cashew nuts and keep aside. The fried onions and cashew nuts are to be used along with a few sprigs of mint leaves for garnishing in the end.

Boil 3 cups of long grain Basmati rice so as to cook it half way through. Add salt, ghee, bay leaves and jeera to the water and drain the excess water once rice is cooked halfway. Add a few drops of kewra essence and rose water to the rice to bring out the true Biryani flavour in the rice. Tip - Soak the rice in water for 45 minutes before cooking so that grains lengthen and appear truly restaurant style.

Layer a thick bottomed pan (handi) with the chicken pieces and all of the marinade. Tip - You can also add half cooked potato wedges if you like potatoes in your biryani like my parents do! Sprinkle 1/3rd of the fried onions over the chicken and then layer with the half cooked rice. Top the rice with the rest of the fried onions, some food colour (optional), roasted cashew nuts and saffron soaked in hot milk. Tip - While placing the chicken in the bottom layer of the pan, make sure each piece touches the bottom of the pan to ensure equally cooked pieces and a flavorful roasted texture to the chicken. 

Cover the pan with a lid and weights so that the steam and flavors are trapped in the pan. Place a tawa on the fire and the pan over the tawa so that the chicken doesnt burn. Cook the biryani on high flame for the first 10 minutes and then reduce the flame to a medium for the next 20 minutes. ...and Voila! Authentic Chicken Biryani is ready! Whip up some cucumber raita and serve with lime wedges and onion! This Biryani is to die for! 

Go try this right now and experience the taste of the most authentic restaurant style biryani in the comfort of your home! You can thank me later ;)

Lot's of love,

Salo!

Chicken and Veggies in Creamy Mint Sauce

Here's my first ever recipe on YouTube and it's my wonderfully delicious recipe for Chicken and Veggies in Creamy Mint Sauce. Hope you like my recipe. For more such easy and tasty recipes, follow me on my blog, Goodness Gracious Food.

Enjoy!

Thanks to Rohit, who helped me shoot this recipe!

Much love,

SaloFalo x

Lee's 3 Cup Chicken - Taiwanese Recipe

3 Cup Chicken 

Taiwanese Recipe

Today, I am delighted to share with you, my friend Lee Fang Hao's signature Taiwanese recipe for 3 Cup Chicken. The first time Lee cooked this for me and my friends, he completely impressed us with his cooking skills to the extent that the next time he invited us over, we asked him to prepare it again. Only this time, I took note of how he made it, so that I can try it myself. Read till the end to find a picture of Lee! Single girls, contact me if you find him cute ;) Perhaps I'll be able to arrange a date :p

Coming back to the recipe, it calls for equal parts soy sauce, rice wine and sesame oil to create a deep red sauce for coating chopped pieces of boneless chicken. These are the "three cups" as the dish's name suggests. Although it says 'cups', it needs no more than a 'bottle-cover' measure of each of the three main ingredients. However, this Taiwanese delicacy is not just about the "three cups". It gets its wonderfully distinct flavours from chunks of garlic & ginger and the wonderful spiciness from its chillies. So, what are you waiting for? Get together your ingredients and let's begin!

Ingredients

Boneless chicken pieces

100 ml sesame oil

100 ml soy sauce

100 ml rice wine

a handful of basil leaves

2 inches of ginger sliced finely

8-10 garlic cloves

Spring onions and mushrooms, chopped (optional)

3 huge red chillies, sliced

1 tbsp brown sugar

Procedure

Heat sesame oil in a pan and add the ginger and garlic. Fry till golden brown. Add the chillies and  keep frying. 

 Add brown sugar and stir.

 Add boneless chicken and stir.

 Add soy sauce and stir till the chicken is well-coated.

 Add rice wine in equal amount to the soy sauce.

 Add sesame oil in equal amount to the rice wine and soy sauce. Toss it all in the pan and cook for 10-15 minutes or until the sauces are absorbed by the chicken and it is cooked through. Make sure the sauces don't completely run dry. You want your chicken to be juicy.

Last but not the least, add the basil leaves and stir well till it turns limp and absorbs the juices.

...and it's ready! Serve it with steamed rice!

That's Lee and that's his usual facial expression... for almost everything ;) 

Hope you like this recipe! Comment below and let me know how it turns out for you! If you love pork, try it with pork or even prawns! Whatever you do, it turns out best with chicken! This is me Salo signing off for now, until next time! Ciao!

Vanilla Chicken - My Signature Recipe

Juicy & Succulent

 Vanilla Chicken Recipe

So finally, here's my brand new blog on food and on being a foodie. If you believed that vanilla should only be used in desserts, I'm about to prove you wrong. Since my signature recipe for Vanilla Chicken is something that my friends and family have been giving me raving reviews for, this had to be the first recipe on my blog! This is a recipe invented by me as a result of my boredom from cooking the same quick meals while being on a student budget. I was expecting my dearest friends over, who are very good at cooking and deserved to be served nothing but exceptionally exotic flavours on their plate. I made this for them and they absolutely loved it. In their opinion, this was the best dish I ever cooked for them. So I dedicate this recipe to none other than, the charming couple and my dearest friends in Bristol, Alex & Alexis.

This blog post is also dedicated to Rasika Tembulkar, Harsha Shetty, Mary Dias, Cheryl Akshikar (my mom) and all my lovely friends who requested this perfectly juicy and flavourful recipe. So without any further delay, here it goes! (Read till the end for an extra recipe to go with the chicken!)

Ingredients

(serves 2-3)

• 500 gms chicken (Preferably drumsticks/thighs with skin)
• 3 medium red onions, finely chopped
• salt to taste
• pepper to taste
• 3 tbsps tomato ketchup/ puree
• 3-5 cloves of garlic, halved lengthwise
• 1 inch piece of ginger, finely chopped
• 3-4 tbsps chilli powder/paprika
• 2 tbsps vanilla essence
• 1 1/2 tbsps soy sauce
• 1 tbsp rice wine vinegar (optional)
• a generous splash of tequila or rum (optional)
• dried mixed italian herbs or fresh herbs, finely chopped
• 1/2 cup spring onion greens, finely chopped
• olive oil

Method

To prepare your chicken, take your chicken out of the fridge 30 minutes before it is cooked. Wash and prick with a fork or make gashes with a knife. Marinate with salt, pepper, chilli powder and tomato ketchup/ puree for about half an hour to one hour. If you're in India and it's summer time, you may want to keep it in the refrigerator to marinate.

Drizzle some olive oil in a sauce pan or a deep frying pan and fry the garlic and ginger until they begin to turn brown. Add the onions and fry until the mixture becomes dry and turns golden brown. Drizzle a little more oil and gently add the chicken pieces to the saucepan. As you hear the sizzle, drizzle the vanilla essence, soy sauce, rice wine vinegar (optional) and tequila  rum (optional) over the chicken and cover with a lid for about 5 minutes. Then stir the chicken and add water in the saucepan till 3/4th of the chicken is submerged under water. Cover again and cook for 15 more minutes or until chicken is completely cooked. Check by piercing the chicken with a knife or fork. Once cooked, add the herbs and toss the chicken in its own sauces. 

Serve hot, with a slice of lemon and garnish with spring onion greens. 

As promised, here's an extra tip! Fry your already cooked rice with the vanilla flavoured sauce of the chicken until it's all coated or absorbed by the rice. Alternatively, fry par boiled potato wedges in the sauce until it is absorbed or well coated and voila! You've just made a lovely meal by combining vanilla and chicken!

Do try this wonderful recipe and let me know how it turns out, in the comments section below. Feel free to substitute ingredients with those of your choice and share your ideas with me. Also, share this recipe with your loved ones and it will surely steal their hearts! Kindly let me know what recipe you would like me to cover for you, soon. Looking forward to your valuable feedback.

Much love and good wishes!

SaloFalo!

xoxo