Calcutta Chicken Biriyani - Restaurant Style

BIRIYANI!!  The name of biriyani brings a smile on the face & pops out eyes of many among Indians. There are different styles of preparing biriyani…the one, which is very close to my heart, is Calcutta Chicken Biriyani… Today I am going to share this mouth watering recipe.… Prepare a restaurant style biriyani at home with this easy recipe. Hope you all will enjoy this recipe.

Prep Time: 30 mins
Cooking Time: 1 hr 30 mins
Serving: 4

Ingredients:

•  1 kg Chicken
•  500 gm of basmati rice( soaked for at least 30 mins)
•  4 tsp Ghee (Saturated Butter)
•  1 tsp ginger paste
•  2 tsp garlic paste
•  4 potatoes cut into halves
•  1 medium sized onion finely chopped
•  ½ cup plain curd/ yogurt
•  2 tsp Kashmiri red chili powder
•   ½ tsp of turmeric powder
• Rose water few drops
• Meetha Attar essence 3 drops
• Kewra essence(Screw pine) few drops
• Few strands of saffron soaked in 2-3 tbsp. of warm milk
• 4 eggs
• Sufficient Oil
• Food Colour (optional)
• Salt  

Make a powder of the following spices:

•  2 cinnamon sticks
•   6-7 cloves
•   3-4 green cardamom
•  1/8th of a whole jaiphal(nutmeg)
•  Small amount javitri (mace)
•   1 tsp saahi jeera (cumin)
•   1tsp of saahi morich (white peppercorn)

Method:

1.  In a saucepan add sufficient water to boil the rice.Season the water with 3 tsps oil,salt, green cardamom, cinnamon stick and few cloves,bay leaves.Once the water starts boiling ,add the rice and let it cook for not more then 3-4 mins on high heat.Cook till the rice is 70% cooked. Drain the rice on a colander and spread on a flat plate.
2.  Deep fry the onions until brown and keep it aside .
3.  Pour 2 tsp oil and 2 tsp of Ghee in a heavy bottom pan and heat it.
4. Add the Chicken pieces and sear them on high heat. Add ginger, garlic paste, fried onions and fry along with the   Chicken pieces for about 3 mins then add kashmiri chili powder, turmeric powder, mixed spices prepared and salt and add yogurt after 1 min and sear for another 5 mins. (The amount of garlic should be more then the ginger in the paste)
5.             Add few drops of Meetha Attar and sear for another 2 mins.
6.         In a separate pan boil the potato halves up to 80% at this stage followed by salt and fry them adding a pinch of food colour and keep it aside.
7.          Strain the gravy and keep the strained juice. This is called Tar.
8.         Now comes the assembly part of the biryani. Take a heavy bottom pan, which you can heat on your stovetop.
9.         Grease the inner walls of the vessel with 1-2 tbsp of ghee. Now start building up the layers.
10.            Rice layer followed by a layer of by chicken, potato, saffron infused milk, 2-3 tbsp of Tar,rose water, kewra water. Use all your chicken  and rice to complete the layering. There should be 1/3rd space left in the pan once you finished layering. Cover the biryani pot tightly. 
11.           Now we need to put the biryani for Dum. I take water in a bigger vessel and place the biriyani pot inside that. Let the water boil and then lower the heat and allow it to cook for atleast 10 mins. Turn off the heat. Let it stand for at least an 15 mins before serving.
12.         In the meanwhile boil the eggs.Before serving, just stir it quickly..Serve it with salad,raita or chicken chaap.