Mutton dum biryani

This recipe is my interpretation. I have cooked a lot of one-pot biryani, dum biryani. Every time I cook biryani, family members and friends enjoyed it a lot. It excites me and make me believe in my cooking ability even more when my mom enjoys my food and appreciates it(I know all mothers always appreciate her child’s efforts no matter what 🙂 )

Here’s mutton dum biryani recipe-

Ingredients:-

500 gms Mutton

4 cups of basmati rice (that’s ~ 1 kg rice)

3 large onions sliced thin

4 tomatoes finely chopped

4 green chillies slit at the center

3 tbspn ginger garlic paste

2 tbspn red chilli powder

2 tspn coriander powder

1 tspn garam masala powder

½ cup finely chopped coriander leaves

½ cup finely chopped mint leaves

3 tbspn oil + 1 tbspn ghee

2 piece cinnamon

4 no cloves

4 no cardamom

2 no Javathti

2 no bay leaves

Salt to taste

For marination:-

2 tspn thick curd

1 tbspn red chilli powder(Chilli powders heat varies. My red chilli powder has moderate heat, check your chilli powder heat level and use it as per your heat tolerance)

1 tspn tumeric powder

1 tspn salt

Directions:-

To cook basmati rice seperately:-

Soak basmati rice in water for about 10 mins. Wash the rice gently ensuring to take out only starch and not break the grains. Mean while add about 4 liters of water in a large vessel and bring it to boil. Once water starts to boil, add about 1 tspn of cooking oil, 1 cinnamon, 2 cloves, 1 javathri, 1 bay leaves and 1 tspn of salt. Add the soaked and washed rice, stir gently once and cook until it is ¾ done for about 3-5 mins. Keep an eye on rice as some brands of basmati rice cooks very fast and some takes time. My rice was ¾ done in 4 mins. Drain the water immediately and spread the rice on a large plate and let it cool.

Next –

1. Clean and wash the mutton thoroughly for atleast 3 times. Add a little salt while washing the mutton(this will help to get rid off the smell to an extent)

2. Marinate the mutton pieces with ingredients mentioned under marination list. Marinate for atleast ½ hour.

3. Pressure cook mutton for 3-4 whistles along with few pieces of onions, tomatoes and coriander leaves. This will make the meat tender and easy to make the dum biryani.

4. In a deep bottomed pan add oil, once oil gets heated add 1 onion slices and fry it until brown(dont burn the onions). Remove browned onion from oil and keep it aside. This will be used for garnishing and will making the layers.

5. To the same pan add remaining onions(2 onions) slices and green chillies and saute till onions turn translucent. Next add ginger-garlic paste and saute till the raw smell goes off.

6. Add chopped tomatoes and saute till tomatoes turn slightly mushy. Next add red chilli powder, coriander powder and salt(to taste, remember chicken marinate contains salt as well). Saute for 2 mins.

8. Take the Dum pan, add ghee and spread it to coat all the bottom and sides of the pan, reduce the flame to low. Add about 2 full tbspns of the mutton gravy(remember it shouldn’t be very watery) spread all over the bottom. Next add cooked basmati rice over the mutton and gently spread the rice to cover the mutton. At this stage you can use the watery gravy that you removed in step 6. Use a tea spoon and remove the top oily layer from gravy and drizzle over the rice, this will add flavors to the rice and also give color.

If you didn’t get the gravy as in step 6, at this stage you can used about 10 strands of saffron immersed in ¼ warm milk for about 10 mins and use the colored milk over the rice instead of salna.

8. Repeate step 7 until you have used up all rice and mutton. Over the top sprinkle coriander and mint leaves and browned onions and close with a lid. Ensure the flame is low and place a heavy weight on top of lid to trap the steam inside. Leave it alone for 10 mins and your dum biryani is ready.