Dave found this recipe long ago, and Margie keeps asking him to make it again. It’s a bit labor-intensive, but the results are well worth it. Biryani is a Pakistani/Indian cooking style, and you can find a lot of variations on this recipe out on the web. Dave writes:

Ingredients:

2 tbsp Oil (I use olive oil) [2]
1 mdm Onion, sliced
3 lg Potatoes, chunked [1]

1/4 tsp Cumin Seed
3 Black Peppercorns
3 sticks cinnamon

1 clove Garlic, minced
3/4 tsp Coriander, ground
1/4 tsp Cayenne Pepper, ground
1/8 tsp Turmeric, ground
1/4 tsp Ginger, ground
1 dash Salt, to taste

1 whole Tomato, chopped
1 tbsp Tomato Paste

6 pieces Chicken [3]
1 cup Water

Instructions:

1. Heat oil [2] in a Dutch oven or large pot or large skillet [5] over medium heat.
2. Saute onion clices in oil until golden; remove and set aside.
3. Brown potatoes in oil (get those surfaces nice and crispy); remove and set aside.
4. Add cumin seeds, peppercorns, cinnamon to pot; fry for about 30 seconds.
5. Add garlic, coriander, cayenne, turmeric, ginger, and salt to taste; fry another 30 seconds.
6. Add tomato, tomato paste; cook 1 minute.
7. Add potatoes, chicken, water. Cover and simmer until tender. [4]
8. Add onion slices and simmer a few seconds.

Notes:

[1] The original recipe calls for “quartered,” which makes for very large potatoes. I usually use smaller pieces, but if you make them too small, the simmering process will basically make them part of the sauce, esp. if you don’t brown the sides enough, rather than leaving them as chunks of potato. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but there’s probably a happy medium.

[2] The original recipe calls for 2 tbsp of oil, but, honestly, you will probably need an extra glug or two of oil after the onions and potatoes.

[3] It’s not always easy, in this packaged age, to find “chicken parts.” If you interpret this as a drumstick or a wing, that’s going to be different from a drumstick-thigh combo, or a boneless breast. Choose the size/qty of chicken you want as a serving and use that. The basic recipe will work okay with any of the above. You might also, with boneless breasts, chunk the chicken up into bite-sized chunks; that would fit with the more traditional Indian/Pakistani serving.

[4] If you end up with large chicken pieces (thinking here of boneless/skinless breasts with leg meat), it will look like you have much more chicken than you can handle. The fact is, though, by the time you’re done simmering enough to cook the chicken (180 degrees!), even large pieces like that will have simmered down into the sauce (which will have increased due to the water and fat from the chicken).

[5] I usually make double-recipes, so my 16 quart pot works great for this, eventually. It’s a bit more difficult in the onion and potato browning stages, though.

Serving suggestions:

Serve over hot rice (Basmati rice would be most traditional). Flat noodles also work (though since “biryani” means “rice,” that probably breaks a rule somewhere).

Source:

Derived from LA Times, 6 June 1985 (attrib. to Barbara Skaggs, Woodland Hillls, Calif.).