Beef Biryani

What comes to your mind when you think of a special lunch at your favorite Indian household? Most of you are going to guess this right... Yes I'm talking about the one and only - Biryani. A complete meal in one giant pot of love!

Biryani is in many ways a royal dish which made it's way into the average Indian home. While chicken biryani is the most common and a traditional favorite, we're bringing you this delicious beef biryani recipe, as it happens to be the absolute favorite at my home. The recipe is adapted from my mum’s mutton biryani recipe and carries flavor in a much more interesting way than it does with chicken. Now, biriyani requires a bit of effort, but then that's what makes this royal dish a class apart.

Beef Biryani

Servings: Serves 6-8

Prep time: 30 mins

Cook time: 1 hour

Ingredients:

◻ 1 kg beef

◻ 4 large onions

◻ 2 tomatoes

◻ 2 tbsp ginger paste

◻ 2 tbsp garlic paste ◻ 2-4 green chilies ◻ ¼ cup of oil ◻ 1 cup mint finely chopped ◻ 1 cup coriander finely chopped ◻ 3 tbsp ghee ◻ ½ cup yogurt Marinade for beef: ◻ ½ tbsp salt ◻ 1 tbsp garam masala ◻ ¼ tsp turmeric powder ◻ 1 tsp fennel powder ◻ 1 tsp pepper Spice mix: ◻ 4 tsp coriander powder ◻ 1 tsp chilli powder ◻ 1 tsp turmeric powder ◻ 2 tsp garam masala ◻ 1 tsp fennel powder Rice: ◻ 3 cups basmati rice ◻ Water to boil ◻ Spices (1 tsp cumin, 1 bay leaf, 4 cloves, 3 green cardamom, 2 inch cinnamon stick) ◻ Salt (as per taste)

Preparation:

1. Cut the beef into medium sized pieces (thinner slices will allow faster cooking), we then pressure cook it with the marinade masala for half an hour or until it is ¾th cooked.

2. Meanwhile, start with frying 4 thinly sliced onions in ¼ cup of oil until brown. Take half of this browned onion and keep it aside for the final assembly of the dum biryani.

3. Add the ginger paste, garlic paste and finely chopped green chillies to the cooked onions in the pan .

4. Once the raw smell of the ginger and garlic paste has disappeared, we can add the spice mix and cook it for a minute.

5. Add the finely chopped tomatoes, also add some salt to fasten the cooking process. Once the tomatoes are well cooked and the oil starts to leave from the sides of the mixture, we can move to the next step.

6. Add the ¾th cooked beef to the prepared masala at this time and mix thoroughly until it is coated well.

7. Mix in the yogurt, along with a handful of mint and coriander leaves and cook the beef masala for another 5 minutes.

8. Take the non-stick deep dish that you intend to use for the assembly of the dum biryani. Fill it with water (upto ¾th) and keep it to boil.

9. Add the spices to the water so that the rice will be flavorful. Adding a tbsp of oil and lemon juice to the rice water will help you get more flavorful and separated rice, you can also add the salt at this time. One of the important steps in making a perfect biryani is adding some extra salt at the time of rice preparation. When you taste the water, it should almost taste like a soup at this point. Add the 3 cups of rinsed, soaked and strained rice to the water. Cook until it is ¾th done. Drain the rice into a colander.

10. So now its time to assemble our dum biryani, add ghee to the bottom of the non stick deep dish, spoon out a thick layer of rice from the top of the colander, spread mint, coriander, fried onions, ghee , and layer it with beef and gravy.

11. Add the next layer of rice and follow the same layering pattern. The final layer will be rice topped with onions, coriander, mint.

12. We can also add 1 tsp rosewater, 1 tsp saffron milk, a pinch of garam masala and ghee to the top, cover and place the pot over a flat pan, enabling indirect heat to cook the biryani on dum for ½ an hour on a low flame.

P.S. If you have sufficient time at hand you can marinate the beef with the masala for an hour before you cook it. Out of all the spices, chilli can be adjusted according to the preference of your family. And don't forget to check salt levels at every step.

So now the only question remaining would be, is today the special day to make it?

Flavors with spice and all things nice ❤

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